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Category: Business/Technology

A health-minded business accelerator program debuts

Wisconsin State Journal

Computer wonks are not the only ones who can come up with good ideas for new technology and companies. So can doctors, nurses and medical school students. That’s the idea behind a new accelerator on the UW-Madison campus that is designed to move inventions specifically from UW Health or the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to the market.

Walker misses mark on marginal tax rates

Politifact Wisconsin

“Economies grow and decline for a complex set of reasons,” said Andrew Reschovsky, professor emeritus of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin. “One must be very careful in attributing any economic change to a specific policy

Google’s Madison Expansion to Triple Size of Local Offices

Xconomy

Google isn’t the only tech company based outside of Wisconsin that has been drawn to Madison by its lower costs, hard-working culture, and relatively strong talent pool, driven in part by a respected computer science program at UW-Madison. Other tech firms with Madison offices include San Francisco-based software company Zendesk, which in October opened new local digs with room for more than 400 employees.

Foxconn reconsiders plan for Wisconsin manufacturing hub

AP

MADISON, Wis. — Electronics giant Foxconn reversed course and announced Wednesday that the massive Wisconsin operation that was supposed to bring a bounty of blue-collar manufacturing jobs back to the Midwest — and was offered billions of dollars in incentives from the state — will instead be devoted mostly to research and development.

FDA Pushing for Over-The-Counter Sales of Naloxone

Pain News Network

Noted: “Expanding naloxone access increases opioid abuse and opioid-related crime, and does not reduce opioid-related mortality. In fact, in some areas, particularly the Midwest, expanding naloxone access has increased opioid-related mortality. Opioid-related mortality also appears to have increased in the South and most of the Northeast as a result of expanding naloxone access,” wrote Jennifer Doleac, PhD, Texas A&M University, and co-author Anita Mukherjee, PhD, University of Wisconsin.

Naming rights deals for sports venues proliferate, but two economists say they do nothing for a company’s bottom line

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Quoted: University of Wisconsin-Madison marketing professor Kevin Chung sees good reason for insurers to keep their names before the public. In a hyper-competitive insurance market in which consumers shop only infrequently, it’s very important for companies to be on consumers’ minds, Chung said by email.

That’s one reason why insurance advertisements — think of Geico — tend to be memorable and interesting, he said.

“With this being said,” Chung added, “there is no study in marketing that I know of that has convincingly shown that sponsorship via stadium naming rights led to increased awareness and ultimately to more sales in insurance products.”

How cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh can new tech hubs?

Fast Company

Similar to Pittsburgh, Madison, Wisconsin is another city relying on its university community for its bread and butter. The city’s nonprofit Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Accelerator Program is the nation’s first designated patent and licensing organization. Since 1925, the organization has provided everything from funding to advice to turn research and innovation that comes out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) into commercially promising technologies.

Momo and more Hungry Badger Cafe aims to feed hungry Badgers

Isthmus

Noted: Deepak Shrestha went to school at UW-Madison, but the couple met in Nepal when he was home on summer break. They settled in Madison in 1988, and Archana says her family has felt “really welcome here.” She and her husband both work other jobs — he’s an engineer, she works for UW-Madison’s University Research Park. Adding a restaurant to the mix will keep them busy, but they’re up to the challenge. “We’ll see how it goes,” Archana says.

A new ‘Uber for Poop’ in Senegal is creating competition to pick up waste from people’s homes

Business Insider

Noted: Lipscomb said she and her team — Terence Johnson at the University of Notre Dame, Laura Schechter at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jean-Francois Houde at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — did not set out to oversee the system long-term. The professors worked with an NGO and handed the project off to Senegal’s government after finishing their research in 2016.

New Weight-Loss Device Aids Rats In Losing Nearly 40% Of Their Body Fat

Forbes

University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists believe they may have come up with a way to stem the tide of obesity-related disease and illness and improve quality of life for hundreds of millions of people worldwide who suffer from weight problems. These scientists have created what they say is a safe and easily implantable weight-loss device that in lab experiments, aided rats in shedding nearly 40% of their body weight.

World steps up to study India’s cash ban while Modi looks away

Qrius

Noted: Rikhil R. Bhavnani and Mark Copelovitch, associate professors of political science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, say:

  • The economic impact was felt most acutely in relatively “unbanked” and cash-dependent areas.
  • Still in elections held soon after, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party was penalized the least in relatively unbanked districts. This shows that a substantial share of voters supported demonetization despite its negative economic effects.
  • If Modi hadn’t framed demonetization as a fight against corruption, there might have been a loss of support to the BJP.

Excerpts from recent Wisconsin editorials

AP

We have seen Foxconn make plans for “innovation centers” here in Racine, in Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee and Eau Claire to support its high tech plant plans; we have seen it partner with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and with local universities and colleges to enhance training and skill development for workers and system processes; we have seen Foxconn pledge to mitigate environmental impacts by developing a zero liquid discharge wastewater treatment system that will more than halve its water needs at the Mount Pleasant campus — a state of the art system that was not required in its contract with Wisconsin.

Man with a plan

Isthmus

For an executive who just watched a half-billion dollars swirl down the drain, Erik Iverson is a cool cucumber. Just maybe the right guy at a crucial moment for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

Madison levels up: A guide to the exploding game development scene

Isthmus

You don’t really see it until it’s all in one place.

That was certainly the case in mid-October, when more than 400 game developers from Madison and the Midwest converged at the second edition of M+Dev, the game developers’ conference held annually here. As the assembled masses networked and swapped personal stories, it was hard not to feel — and impossible not to see — an ongoing sense of critical mass.

Model of dysfunction

Isthmus

UW-Madison’s Discovery To Product program was launched in 2013 asking the still vital question: What could be done to bring the great breakthroughs produced by the nation’s sixth largest research university to the broader public?

How too much confidence can benefit entrepreneurs

Futurity

Elfenbein and Hart Posen of the University of Wisconsin first struck upon this course of study while together at the Darden-Cambridge Judged Entrepreneurship Conference in London in 2015. Over dinner in Cambridge’s Christ’s College dining hall, they decided to put a team together to emphasize their scholarly strengths.

Foxconn Institute of Technology at the University of Wisconsin

VOA Chinese

In addition to establishing the Wiscon Valley Technology Park in Racine County, Wisconsin, the Hon Hai Foxconn Group in Taiwan is also cultivating more scientific and technological talents through cooperation with local universities. This is the School of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We interviewed the Dean of the School of Engineering and asked him to talk about cooperation with Foxconn. (In Chinese.)

The top business schools for high-paying tech jobs

eFinancialCareers

Noted: Wisconsin only ranked as the 42nd best overall business school in the U.S., with its compensation figures in other industries falling well below the $130k average for tech. For example, Wisconsin Business School grads who took a job in finance earned a median salary of roughly $90k, well behind the $150k average for Stanford and Harvard MBAs. But Wisconsin appears to be your best bet in the Midwest for a high-paying tech job. And tuition is only around $38k, half that of Harvard.