In Madison, Foxconn has said it intends to use part of the nearly century-old, six-story office building at 1 W. Main St. to serve as its off-campus hub to collaborate closely with UW-Madison faculty and students on research in medical, material, computer and data sciences.
MILWAUKEE — Foxconn Technology Group promised to make a splash in Wisconsin beyond the sprawling manufacturing facility it is building in the southeast of the state, but there’s little evidence that plans to build the so-called “innovation centers” are moving forward.
Noted: The state could focus on attracting more people from other states or countries. Our research has shown more people have moved away from Wisconsin than into the state every year for more than a decade. One option to try to reverse this trend would be for the University of Wisconsin System to continue to increase enrollment of non-resident students at its institutions, which it has already been doing in recent years.
Noted: Faulkner said that she first worked on an electronic health records system as a project when she was pursuing a master’s degree in computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Mark Stephenson is the director of dairy policy analysis with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’re about $1.30, $1.40 higher per hundredweight on milk than we were this time last year,” Stephenson says. “So we’ve had a definite improvement.”
To promote the commercialization of those businesses, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and University of Wisconsin System awarded eight of those companies further funding through its SBIR Advance fund to help them bring products to market.
Diverse Thinking in Design partners with local organizations and high schools with marginalized communities to offer access into the design industry.
The Cost of NewsThe Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a 10% decline in jobs for reporters, correspondents and broadcast news analysts by 2028, and it isn’t hard to guess why. It’s easy to come by free information in the internet age, so why pay? Unfortunately, there’s no reason to believe that free news is better news.
— Clare Stumpf, University of Wisconsin-Madison, actuarial science
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a 2018 decision to throw out more than $500 million in damages owed by Apple to the University of Wisconsin for infringing on one of its patents. The win for Apple comes as it endures heavy scrutiny from federal regulators over its business practices.
WARF spokesperson ’disappointed’ in Supreme Court decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal Monday by UW-Madison’s patent licensing arm to reestablish a legal victory against Apple in a dispute over computer processor technology.
Introduced in Fall 2019, the degree hopes to optimize experiential learning through real-world computing projects and a variety of industry specific analytics courses — a skill many students feel they lack coming out of undergrad.
Noted: Joseph T. Halford and Hung-Chia Hsu, researchers from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, tested whether the appearance of a company’s CEO is related to shareholder value.
They found stock prices rose higher for businesses with attractive CEOs after positive news about the company aired on TV.
Quoted: “It’s a shake-out. This is not just a bump on a trend line. This is a pretty big change,” said Mark Stephenson, Director of Dairy Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
During a visit to a Westby creamery on Monday, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., says she’s hopeful the Senate will approve an $18 million increase for the Dairy Business Innovation Initiative.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a bid by the University of Wisconsin’s patent licensing arm to reinstate its legal victory against Apple Inc (AAPL.O) in a fight over computer processor technology that the school claimed the company used without permission in certain iPhones and iPads.
Noted: An earlier pledged contribution by Foxconn of up to $100 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been slow to develop.
It’s no secret it’s another tight year for row crop farmers in the Corn Belt and Upper Midwest. Analysts say the uncertainty hasn’t changed.
“That’s the status of the farm economy,” said Paul Mitchell, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It’s waiting for results for this uncertainty while we go in to harvest.”
Noted: Prior to Rockwell Automation, Nicolas worked for General Motors Corp. for nine years. He holds a master of business administration in operations management and master of science in manufacturing systems engineering, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his bachelor of science in manufacturing systems engineering from Kettering University in Flint, Michigan.
It’s a commonly known fact that by the age of thirty-five, two-thirds of men will experience some form of balding. That figure only increases as males age and hair thinning progressively increases.
Noted: Bernstein first entered fashion with the intention of becoming a designer, transferring from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to New York’s famed Fashion Institute of Technology to do just that. With self-taught photo skills and inspiration from her fellow fashionista undergrads, Bernstein shot street fashion and posted it to Instagram, the then-newbie photo sharing platform.
Interview with Timothy Smeeding, Lee Rainwater Distinguished Professor of Public Affairs and Economics.
Quoted: “Every couple of months there’s been a different plan,” said Steven Deller, an economist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “First it was 13,000 jobs. Now it might be 1,000 jobs. They’ve really scaled back on what they plan to do.”
Column by Aaron Olver, Managing Director of University Research Park in Madison.
“When supply is fixed (as in this case), a decrease in demand requires a decrease in price to clear the market,” stated University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Alan Sorensen.
Quoted: Of the new DTC brands, Hart Posen, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s school of business, said, “You get the sense from looking at all of them that this is not your Ikea construction set. This is a high-quality product with a superior flat-pack to construction technology.”
We all have frustrating days at the office, but how do you know when it’s just that, or when it’s time to think about moving on? Wisconsin School of Business Senior Lecturer for the Weinert Center of Entrepreneurship, Dr. Phil Greenwood is in the studio — he says there are five clear signs it’s time to leave your job.
NotedL Madison, home to the highest concentration of millennial workers, was recently named one of the 10 best cities for entrepreneurs and has the second-highest employment outlook in the country. To attract and retain top talent, companies are thinking outside the box. One of the Madison business community’s greatest assets is having a university in town that’s continually preparing potential employees. Amy Achter, the managing director of the Office of Business Engagement at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, says her office works with companies looking for new ways to find students.
Imagine this: The doorbell rings and you’re greeted by a delivery person with a box in hand. Inside the box is a virtual reality headset branded with the logo from that one company that’s been encouraging you to visit its office. You decide to give it a shot. You take a seat, slip on the headset and are immediately transported to an apartment in Madison.
FCDI’s new $21 million facility, next to its headquarters at University Research Park, will meet the Food and Drug Administration’s strict standards for Good Manufacturing Practice.
Fujifilm Cellular Dynamics Inc. is one of at least 10 stem cell companies in Madison, most started by UW-Madison researchers.
Tom Erickson was ready to retire to Australia. But then the Wisconsin native and veteran technology executive got an offer from his alma mater that he decided he couldn’t pass up.
“We would have had problems even without the trade war,” said Paul Mitchell, director of the Renk Agribusiness Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
UW-Madison rolled out a new Multi-Factor Authentication Software Monday in an attempt to eliminate the numerous hacking issues the university has faced.
Roughly a year since Foxconn Technology Group pledged $100 million to help fund a new UW-Madison engineering building and company-related research, the university said it has received $700,000, less than 1% of the original commitment.
Noted: Foxconn has partnered with the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities and the Wisconsin Technical College System on the “Smart Cities-Smart Futures” competition. Foxconn said it will be visiting colleges and universities across Wisconsin as part of a campus tour to promote the competition and encourage innovative thinkers to put forth their ideas and apply.
Quoted: The new IP value generated a big set of “deferred tax assets”—like pre-paid tax payments or credits—in the Netherlands of $6.1 billion, according to Dan Lynch, an associate professor of accounting and information systems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who read the quarterly filing. The taxes would be calculated through multiplying profits by the tax rate. The rate could be either 25% or 7%, the lower number reserved for profits from IP “innovation” developed in the Netherlands, according to Dudley.
Quoted: “The nightmare for the companies is having 50 different state proceedings, which could indeed wind up commanding different results,” said Peter Carstensen, a former attorney at the antitrust division of the DOJ and a professor of law emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
Column: Tom Erickson is quick to talk about his days growing up in the western Wisconsin community of Mondovi, just south of Eau Claire, as well as his time as a computer and electrical engineering student at UW-Madison.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison announced on Thursday the creation of its first new school in two decades, responding to high demand from students and a burgeoning need in the state’s workforce.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has established a School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS) in the College of Letters & Science and will partner with industries to provide them with an advantage in the latest technology.
Quoted: “Most young people graduating college in Wisconsin are going to be going into work where they are covered by a defined contribution plan, what is also known as a 401(k) plan. Unless they are working for a state entity or some other collectively bargained organization, they are probably not going to have a pension,” said Gordon Enderle, an actuary at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.
Noted: Under one bill, $224,000 would pay for two new employees within the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability in Madison to help farmers with financial decisions related to the transfer of their operations to a new generation or new owners.
Quoted: Even glimmers of good news come these days with a sobering twist. Milk prices have rebounded a little, but partly because enough farmers have quit that it has reduced milk production, said Matt Lippert, a University of Wisconsin-Extension agricultural agent in Wood County.
“Some of them are supportive of the president and say, ‘We just have to be patient. We’ve not been (treated) fair and the president is going to fix it.’ Then some of them are like, ‘We’ve given him enough time already.’ And there are others who are like, ‘No this wasn’t the way ever to do it.’ But they all uniformly think that loss of markets and the tariff thing is hurting them.”
Noted: Focusing on increasing shareholder value has not benefited society overall, said Joel Rogers, director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The theory itself was wrong,” said Rogers, who also is a professor of law, political science, public affairs and sociology.
“Markets drive firms to be short-sighted and make insufficient investments in their workers and communities,” he added. “We know that. Unfettered markets are not the recipe for a happy society. That was the great Freidman lie.”
Quoted: Financial capability specialist Peggy Olive breaks it down like this: half of all people who have a credit card balance pay it off entirely each month. Another quarter carry a balance a few months of the year, and the rest regularly owe money on their cards.”Definitely, there’s different ways that people handle that credit card debt,” said Olive, who works with the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Human Ecology’s Center for Financial Security and UW-Extension.
Quoted: “If a parent gets health insurance through their employer, then, through the Affordable Care Act, their kids are covered through their parents at some level,” says Marjorie Rosenberg, a professor of actuarial science, risk, and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.
Noted: Sure, sometimes people do get in the way. They’re curious. What’s this thing for, anyway? They’ll follow the robots to see what they do or tap their buttons to see what happens. “People want to explore them, and they don’t know how to do that,” says Bilge Mutlu, who runs the University of Wisconsin’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab. Rarely do the interventions cause damage.
A preternatural silence has surrounded the departure of one of the highest paid executives on the UW-Madison campus. It’s one more sign of the big changes rocking the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, UW’s independent patenting and licensing operation.
AIQ Solutions, which is based on technology developed at UW Carbone Cancer Center, raised $3.2 million in equity financing, the company announced this month. Capital Midwest Fund led the round, which also involved Rock River Capital Partners, 30Ventures and Wisconsin Investment Partners.
A Madison company that makes software approved to gauge treatment response in breast and prostate cancer patients plans to submit a second product, for blood cancers, for approval by early next year.
AIQ Solutions, which is based on technology developed at UW Carbone Cancer Center, raised $3.2 million in equity financing, the company announced this month. Capital Midwest Fund led the round, which also involved Rock River Capital Partners, 30Ventures and Wisconsin Investment Partners.
Noted: Research that one of us, Bill, did with Willie Choi of the University of Wisconsin and Gary Hecht of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, suggests that simply talking about strategy with people is not sufficient. In other words you can’t just invite them to boardroom briefings and hang signs around the building promoting the strategy—you need to involve people in its development.
Wes Schroll didn’t care where he bought groceries. As a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Schroll shopped where it was convenient depending on if he was walking, taking the bus or driving to the store.
He signed up for loyalty rewards programs at various stores. But looking in his pantry, he bought the same brands each week. Schroll wanted to be rewarded for that loyalty. The frustration led him to develop Fetch Rewards, an app that has shoppers scan in receipts to get points for the brand-name products purchased.
Noted: When Americans declare that “we live in a capitalist society” — as a real estate mogul told The Miami Herald last year when explaining his feelings about small-business owners being evicted from their Little Haiti storefronts — what they’re often defending is our nation’s peculiarly brutal economy. “Low-road capitalism,” the University of Wisconsin-Madison sociologist Joel Rogers has called it.
Written by Matthew Desmond, a professor of sociology at Princeton University and a UW alumnus.
This is the fourth column in a series about UpStart, a free entrepreneurship program for women and people of color supported by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, or WARF.
More and more women are building successful startups. Wisconsin School of Business Senior Lecturer for the Weinert Center of Entrepreneurship, Dr. Phil Greenwood, is in the studio to take a look at the trends — based on characteristics that are both similar to and different from male-founded companies.
Quoted: “If he’s trying to encourage jobs and producing things here by taking away from other countries, the tariff could in principle do that, but it’s got to inflict pain upon somebody,” says Menzie Chinn, a professor of public affairs and economics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Quoted: “Figure out which items your child needs at the start of school and which items can wait a month or two,” Peggy Olive, a financial capability specialist at the Center for Financial Security at the UW-Madison School of Human Ecology, said in an email.
Quoted: Heather Kirkorian, an early childhood development professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, opened the app this week and found Baby Shark and Lucas the Spider, two global hits. “I wouldn’t consider them educational. I would consider them wholesome,” she said. “The term ‘educational’ is used as an umbrella for ‘non-harmful.’”
Quoted: Alfonso Morales, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and researcher of public marketplaces, said public markets help those with fewer resources to build wealth and carve a place in their community.
But he said community support sours with public markets when they do not meet expectations set forth by those who envision them.
“If you over-promise, right, you’re gonna be in trouble,” Morales said.
