Noted: Badgerloop, the University of Wisconsin’s largely undergraduate team, laid claim to one of the event’s most impressive booths. Throughout the weekend, team members, who were clad in matching red-and-black polo shirts and khakis, built an Oculus Rift-like headset out of cardboard to help explain their pod’s unique technology to the steady throng around their eye-catching display.
Noted: BluDiagnostics was formed in 2015 by Katie Brenner, a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It raised $600,000 of the money in January, when it said it was trying to raise $800,000. That goal has been amended to $1.2 million, according to the recent filing.
A UW-Madison team that designed a pod for transporting people at futuristic speed finished third in SpaceX’s first worldwide Hyperloop competition, hosted at Texas A&M University Jan. 29 and 30.
Noted: Author Robert Misey is chair of the International Department at Reinhart Boerner Van Deuren S.C. and adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Law. He previously worked for the IRS Chief Counsel (International) in Washington.
Noted: Field Day Lab is continuing to develop some of the ideas that were born in the workshop into free, open-sourced video games. The game designers said they aim to further engage students with an interactive learning environment.
“By engaging science teachers right from the start, we want to build games that will actually be used in classrooms,” said David Gagnon, the director of Field Day Lab, in the release. “Too many games languish because they do not fit what teachers want. With the teachers’ help, we want to build them right—right out of the gate.”
We’ve already got robot receptionists, who respond to human interactions — now we have a robot that changes how it looks depending on your personality. This robot, designed by Sean Andrist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has been developed to respond to ’social gaze’ — essentially the social context in which we look at one another. The robot uses social cues, which it processes via a bespoke algorithm, to figure out what kind of personality you have and respond accordingly.
Students who are part of the University of Wisconsin’s BadgerLoop team took third in the world for their Hyperloop design in Texas yesterday.
Noted: Howard started the company with two friends when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. EatStreet provides more than 15,000 restaurants in 250 cities across the country with around the clock support.
Quoted: And, according to Andra Ghent, associate professor in the Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics at UW-Madison’s School of Business, baby boomers will be flooding the market in five to 10 years, creating even more demand.
A Delaware federal judge has dismissed a patent royalty lawsuit filed by Washington University in St. Louis against a foundation affiliated with the University of Wisconsin, ruling that its claims were barred by the statute of limitations.
Computer scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are tasked with protecting data from some of the nation’s most prolific science research programs, and they’ve just gotten a financial boost to bolster their efforts.
Students part of University of Wisconsin’s BadgerLoop are preparing for a national SpaceX competition that challenges them to bring transportation technology to life.
The BadgerLoop team is creating their version of SpaceX’s Hyperloop concept, a new technology that uses air pressures to propel a transportation pod down a tube for fast travel.
Madison tech companies that get acquired don’t need to close up shop if they can convince their buyers there’s more benefits from the acquisition than the technology itself, leaders of life sciences companies said at a WARF panel.
Quoted: Those consumers just might be one of the answers to investors’ woes, said David Silberman, who is pursuing a master’s degree in finance and participating in the Applied Security Analysis Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
(Video) Last year, Space X and Tesla announced an exciting engineering competition for university students. The goal of the competition is to come up with a mode of transportation that is faster, safer, less expensive and more sustainable than planes, cars or trains. A team from the University of Wisconsin is in the competition this year.
Noted: BluDiagnostics was formed by Katie Brenner, a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The app, called the BluDiagnostics Fertility Finder, analyzes hormones found in saliva and displays results through the app.
Tom Still column on campus innovation: “UW-Madison remains one of the nation’s research powerhouses and was ahead of the curve in offering pathways for entrepreneurs. But even that campus has experienced a post-2000 explosion in programs for students and faculty who want to convert ideas into businesses or other ventures. Across the rest of the UW System, most four-year campuses have committed to undergraduate research, industry connections and entrepreneurship training and built support systems to match. The same goes for many of Wisconsin’s private colleges and universities, notably many in the Milwaukee region, as well as the state technical college system.”
Noted: Gener8tor, which recently partnered with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation to train more University of Wisconsin-Madison entrepreneurs, runs start-up training classes in Madison and Milwaukee. It made 17 investments in 2015, according to Pitchbook.
Quoted: And business students are in demand because they have a great balance of hard and soft skills, according to Amanda Earle, associate director of career advising at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Business students are trained to be able to dive into data, make meaning and connections with the data, and then tell a clear and concise story through written and oral communications to both internal and external stakeholders.” Earle says the ability to understand data and know how to effectively communicate it is crucial to helping businesses make important decisions for the bottom line.
Madworks Seed Accelerator, which operates in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, has begun taking applications for its sixth start-up training class.
Quoted: “For 2016, I think the consensus of the industry is there’s going to be downward pressure on prices,” said Brian Gould, an economist with the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability.
Noted: Author Sybil Pressprich is a career and educational counselor for the Division of Continuing Studies at UW-Madison. Pressprich helps adults with career transitions and continuing education through individual sessions and workshops.
Companies less than a year old accounted for all of Wisconsin’s net new job creation in 2012, according to a new study conducted by two University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
Quoted: File your patent early or opt for secrecy. Martin Ganco, associate professor of management and human resources at the Wisconsin School of Business, advises, “A small-business owner should consider filing a patent as early as they have a patentable technology. It can be in the early stages. It is a common mistake to think that a fully functioning prototype is needed to apply for a patent. In rare cases, if the patent provides weak protection, it may be better to opt for not patenting and opt instead for secrecy.”
Noted: Griffie graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in economics and spent three years training high school volunteers to do home repairs in Appalachia.
Noted: Phoenix was founded in 2005 by Greg Piefer, who received his PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Shine Medical Technologies Inc., a Middleton company that is seeking approval from federal regulators to build a medical isotope production plant in Janesville, was spun out of Phoenix in 2010.
Noted: Shine, which grew out of technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, signed a long-term agreement in 2014 to supply moly-99 to GE Healthcare. Tests conducted by the two companies in November showed that moly-99 made with Shine’s proprietary method worked with GE’s equipment and processes, proving its market viability.
Tessa Conroy and Steven Deller recently completed a study showing that Wisconsin job growth is fueled by newer, smaller businesses. But the report says state policies tend to boost larger, more established businesses.
Quoted: The technology behind the robots is mature and reliable, said Bilge Mutlu, associate professor of computer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. So obstacles to more widespread use are the rate of adoption and infrastructure challenges, like WiFi coverage, he said.
Noted: AFIRE members are among the largest international institutional real estate investors in the world and have an estimated $2 trillion or more in real estate assets under management globally. The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2015 by the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, Wisconsin School of Business.
Noted: The two UW-Madison graduates — Fernandez, with a degree in biomedical engineering, and Rusk, in electrical and computer engineering — had been trying to start a company for the last couple of years “in various forms and inclinations,” Fernandez said.
On a campus famed for its breakthroughs in biotechnology, engineering and agriculture, a much smaller department is exerting an outsized effect on the Wisconsin economy – and beyond.
HOUSTON — The original charter of Rice University, drafted in 1891, established a school here dedicated to the advancement of literature, science and art. These days, Rice seems equally dedicated to the advancement of the next Mark Zuckerberg.
A center that focuses on clean energy research will continue operating at the University of Wisconsin-Madison after a $3.5 million grant from the school’s research foundation.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s grant to the Wisconsin Energy Institute was announced Tuesday [Dec. 22].
Epic Systems will endow three faculty associate positions within the University of Wisconsin–Madison computer sciences department, the university announced earlier this month. The endowed faculty will teach software development, application design and user experience.
Founded by UW-Madison’s renowned stem cell pioneer James Thomson in 2004, CDI has been inking powerful deals and gradually adding staff as it has set about to become the premier source for stem cells in the world. In a meeting with the Wisconsin State Journal this week, Kazuyoshi Hirao, CDI’s new chairman and CEO, and Chris Parker, executive vice president and chief business officer, said the company, at 525 Science Drive, will stay in Madison and will continue to grow here.
Since taking office two years ago, University of Wisconsin-Madison chancellor Rebecca Blank has championed the effort to make more resources available to members of the campus community who have ideas for new companies.
Noted: National security quite rightly has dominated our political debate in recent weeks, but I can’t think of a more important issue for Wisconsin and the nation than economic security. The Journal Sentinel opinion pages will focus on this concern as we close out 2015 and move into the presidential election year of 2016. That conversation begins Sunday in Crossroads when we will publish commentary on the Pew report by Salim Furth, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation, and from the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Marianne Smukowski, a dairy safety application coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research, says that the non-toxigenic E. coli can serve as an “indicator organism” that may show the presence of harmful pathogens in food. She says 95 percent of raw milk cheeses checked in one FDA test did not show them, which is why in part she’s unclear as to why the FDA is using that as a new testing issue.
“I don’t know why the FDA is pushing for it,” Smukowski said. “They decided to implement it based on some of the results they have seen in their assignment.”
Noted: That access is something Willis, a web developer and former Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, didn’t have when he tried to launch a different startup in Madison a couple years ago.
Quoted: Jon Eckhardt, executive director of the UW-Madison Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship and a co-founder of gener8tor, said he thinks programs like gener8tor are spurring more cooperation between Madison and Milwaukee.
Noted: Author Moira Kelley is a senior career counselor in UW-Madison’s Division of Continuing Studies.
Quoted: “I know the privilege of being recognized in front of your peers is a big incentive for companies to continuously improve,” said Tom Eggert, who teaches sustainable business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and serves as executive director of the council. “The competitive nature of staying at the front of the pack causes Wisconsin companies to rise above their peers from other states.”
Noted: Discussing the growth of specialized master’s programs as alternatives to an MBA, the article says, “[O]nce you get down into the lower half of the top 50 B-schools, you’ll find a program for just about any career direction, from biotechnology management at the U.C. Irvine Merage School, to global real estate at the Wisconsin School of Business[.]”
Noted: The Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) also reappointed Trustee Terry D. Warfield, PwC Professor in Accounting and chair of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Mr. Warfield’s new term will end on December 31, 2018.
Noted: Author John Williams is the director of the Nelson Insitute’s Center for Climatic Research and Professor of Geography at UW-Madison. Paul Wilson is the interim chair of the Nelson Institute’s Energy Analysis Policy Certificate and professor of nuclear engineering in the Engineering Physics Department at UW-Madison.
Noted: Howard, 26, started the company with two friends when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The company’s core focus is on gaining restaurants in college towns and medium-sized cities as customers.
Quoted: Jerry O’Brien [executive director, The Kohl’s Center for Retailing Excellence], says this trend of “online and not in-line” has been revving its engine for a while now. Online shopping may not be beating regular old shopping in person, but it’s getting there.
“The growth has been consistent. The past four years it’s had dramatic growth, so there’s obvious a trend where we have more people every year, and this past weekend it looks like more than 20 percent of the people took advantage of it so it’s a growing trend,” explained O’Brien.
Noted: “What happened to Target’s website this morning, to me, this doesn’t necessarily represent a hacking attempt or a theft of credit card information, but rather people showing they have confidence in the online retailers and Target’s site is just overwhelmed with shoppers,” UW-System Chief Information Security Officer Nicholas Davis explains.
The latest figures on academic research spending in the United States provide, on the surface, some reassuring news for Wisconsin. For starters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison held its position as the nation’s fourth-largest research and development powerhouse.
Computer science classes, once the exclusive realm of computer geeks planning careers at software companies, are fast becoming part of the mainstream college experience.
The latest figures on academic research spending in the United States provide, on the surface, some reassuring news for Wisconsin. For starters, the University of Wisconsin-Madison held its position as the nation’s fourth-largest research and development powerhouse. Lurking under the waves, however, are currents that should send a chilling message to policy-makers who believe the state can continue to reduce support for higher education — especially basic research — without taking on water over time.
A free legal clinic for entrepreneurs has helped hundreds of Wisconsin businesses open up shop.
Madison is about to get another startup hub. Nestled in the heart of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, right across the street from the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a (formerly purple, as some Madisonians know) brick building was christened “@1403,” named for its location at 1403 University Ave., last week.
A Q&A with this early advocate for Madison’s startup community.
UW-Madison’s computer sciences department has received a $5 million donation from a Milwaukee businessman and his wife.
The university announced the donation from Sheldon and Marianne Lubar on Friday. Other Badger alumni, John and Tashia Morgridge, matched $2 million of the Lubars’ donation, making the total donation $7 million.
A Milwaukee businessman and his wife have donated $5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s computer sciences department.
Noted: The company is a “substantial economic driver” for southeastern Wisconsin, and is “a significant employer of graduates from engineering schools such as MSOE, Marquette, UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison,” Jim Paetsch, vice president of the Milwaukee 7 economic development group, said in a statement.
Personal computers, cellphones, GPS devices, e-mail, the Internet — all of the technology driving today’s economy traces its origins to two inventions: the 1947 transistor from Bell Telephone Laboratories and the 1958 integrated circuit from Texas Instruments and Fairchild.
Report on panel discussion at the UW-Madison on Wednesday evening featuring representatives of global, national and local startup incubator and accelerator programs.
