Category: Business/Technology

Dear Editor: Your article Friday on the massive pro-divestment-from-Israel outcry at the recent UW investment hearings gives exactly the same amount of space to the (very few) people with the (very bad) anti-divestment arguments as to the (very many) people with the (very good) pro-divestment arguments.

During the South Africa divestment campaign, when a huge crowd favored divestment and only a few opposed it, would The Capital Times have given equal space to the tiny pro-apartheid minority? If not, why is The Capital Times, a supposedly left-leaning paper, shilling for the tiny pro-Israeli-apartheid minority who attended the hearings?….

Kevin Barrett, coordinator, Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, Madison

ââ?¬Â¢ Kudos to recent UW-Madison grad Anand Chhatpar, just named one of Business Week Online’s “25 Top Entrepreneurs under 25.” Chhatpar is founder and CEO of BrainReactions, an innovation consulting firm based here. He’s originally from Bombay, India, and came to Madison in fall 2001 to study chemical engineering.

The company that sped up pulls of draft beer at sports stadiums around the country with its Turbo Tap nozzle is bringing the technology to rec rooms across America.

“It brings the project back to our roots,” said inventor Matthew Younkle, the company’s president and chief technology officer, who came up with the idea with partner Kristofer Dressler when they were students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A study that will be released by Milwaukee Women inc today suggests that women have made little or no progress in the executive suites and boardrooms of Wisconsin’s biggest companies in the last two years.

It was prepared by Van Do and Belinda Bao, both graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school.

How do you get into the business of dairy farming?

That question has been asked for a hundred years. And I remember the answers given by my ag economics professor many decades ago when I was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin in the College of Agriculture.

….Craig Carncross, a 1999 UW-Madison dairy science graduate, made up his mind to become a dairy farmer and is doing it as part of a family corporation.

The Fitchburg Technology Campus has broken ground on a second building to house early stage companies that will have Imago Scientific Instruments as its anchor tenant – the second local nanotechnology company to move onto the campus.

As Wisconsin slides toward its worst year in a decade for attracting venture capital, the importance of the State Investment Board’s role in helping to fill the state’s venture void looms large.
The board, which manages more than $70 billion in government employee pension money and other state assets, started talking earlier this fall about increasing the amount it devotes to venture capital the money that bankrolls entrepreneurs as they build fledgling businesses.

In a novel attempt to retain educated professionals and support local entrepreneurship, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Foundation is launching an angel fund that will invest in companies that are founded by recent graduates and located in the Chippewa Valley.

Quotes Charles Hoslet, managing director of corporate relations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

It’s a vexing problem for Wisconsin’s economy: Researchers at UW-Madison turn out top technology, in fields ranging from stem cells to electronics, but entrepreneurs often have trouble finding the money to take those innovations to market.

But a new effort to organize angels, wealthy investors in early-stage technology companies, is providing some answers to that conundrum, said Lorrie Keating Heinemann, the state’s top banking and securities regulator.

Wisconsin also should better market its human capital, which is highly educated and skilled, especially around UW-Madison.

The University of Wisconsin at Madison, $1.591-billion as of October 17 (increase of $21.4-million in the last month); the goal was $1.5-billion by 2007.

Profile: Quantum Devices, a UW-Madison spinoff company based in Barneveld.

The new specialist degrees, however, have been designed from the ground up to be directly relevant to a particular business sector or industry.

One high-profile example is the MBA offerings at the University of Wisconsin’s Madison School of Business. Students entering the school’s course can choose from one of 14 different areas of specialisation. Areas range from arts administration and marketing research to supply chain management and real estate.

School dean, Michael Knetter, says the school has made a conscious effort to appeal to students who have a clear career objective.

10/24/05

Madison has a ways to go to live up to its full potential as model city for business philanthropy. We need to say for fear that we rest on the laurels on those shining examples of corporate citizenship we are so fortunate to have in our midst. But we have enough to give hope to the goal of creating such a model city. And right in the middle of the effort we are again reminded is the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.

(MADISON) The University of Wisconsin-Madison Business School ranks among the world�s top schools for offering classes on social and environmental issues. The newly- developed classes teach students about the human costs of doing business. (Second item.)

College senior Amy Block was stunned to learn in her recent personal finance class how much it costs her over the long run when she pays only the minimum required amount on her credit card bill.

UW-Madison students Nick O’Brien and Mitch Nick want to start a company. So far, all they have in hand is an idea they’ve been researching for more than a year: a system to help firefighters find their way out of smoke-blinded buildings.

Wisconsin is inching forward in its effort to morph into a high-tech state, but it still lags the nation in technology jobs, a new report shows.
The report, to be presented today at the Early Stage Symposium at Monona Terrace, shows Wisconsin scientists and engineers are racking up more patents per capita than most other states, and research funding is steadily rising.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s official anti-sweatshop panel wants the university to require apparel companies that make UW logo clothing to use union labor.

The nine-member panel, made up of students, faculty and staff, voted without dissent Monday to send the recommendation to Chancellor John Wiley. Students, who packed the room, erupted with applause after the vote.

The proposal is designed to encourage large apparel companies like adidas, Nike and Reebok to pay their workers better wages, assign them shorter hours, and improve their working conditions.

n the 1967 movie “The Graduate” Mr. McGuire gave new college grad Benjamin Braddock “just one word” of advice:
Plastics.

In a similar scene last week Bill Gates gave UW- Madison students his advice on the right future to pursue:

Software.

A university committee wants UW-Madison to stop doing business with apparel companies unless those companies agree to buy at least a portion of their goods from union factories.

For newly minted undergraduates to professionals already waist-deep in their careers, there’s no shortage of area MBA degree programs to suit a prospective student’s tastes or busy schedule.
And that’s as it should be, said UW-Madison Business School Dean Michael Knetter, who called occasional allusions to “the demise” of the MBA entirely “premature.”

A class of Introduction to Programming students was on its best behavior Wednesday after Microsoft founder Bill Gates unexpectedly stepped in as substitute teacher for the day.

As part of the broadband cable network mtvUââ?¬â?¢s ââ?¬Å?Stand Inââ?¬Â series, in which celebrities drop in to college classrooms unannounced and teach for a day, Gates spoke to Computer Science 302 students about the importance and versatility of pursuing a career in computer programming.

Gates� stop at the University of Wisconsin was also part of a week-long tour of six universities promoting information technology and engineering careers.

Gary Lessuise got his MBA from UW-Madison in 1972, but he always dreamed of coming back.

Lessuise, 58, went to work for Ford Motor Company and stayed for more than three decades.

On Sept. 6, he returned to his alma mater as assistant dean for master’s degree programs.

After being dubbed in recent months as a low-key hotspot for biotechnology development by The Scientist and the nation�s top research university by Washington Monthly, Madison has gained even more recognition as an emerging powerhouse in the life sciences.