Bloomington Startup Weekend

Bloomington is a city in south central Indiana. Located about 50 miles southwest of Indianapolis, it is the seat of Monroe County. As of the 2000 U.S. Census, Bloomington had a total population of 69,291, making it the 7^th largest city in Indiana.

Bloomington is the home of Indiana University’s flagship campus (established in 1820), attended by approximately 40,000 students, the original and largest campus of the Indiana University system. It is also the home of the prestigious School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington, the world renowned Jacobs School of Music and Kelley School of Business, the Kinsey Institute, and The Midwest Proton Radiotherapy Institute.

Bloomington’s Indiana University campus is regarded as one of the most beautiful in the nation. In 1991, Thomas Gaines, a landscape artist, published a book, The Campus As a Work of Art, in which he named the Bloomington campus one of the five most beautiful campuses in America. Most of the campus buildings are built of Indiana limestone. Due to the presence of the university, Bloomington is more diverse demographically than is typical for the state.

Bloomington has been named a Tree City for more than 20 years. The city was the site of the Academy Award-winning movie Breaking Away, featuring Indiana University’s annual bicycle race Little 500. Bloomington is also famous for its rock quarries, also featured in Breaking Away, which residents use as swimming holes.