Category: Business/Technology

AquaMost is working to market water purification technology based on research done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Its device destroys a variety of pathogens in water, including bacteria, viruses and fungi. It can also destroy harmful chemicals that can contaminate drinking water.

Four months after he left office, former Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has taken a position leading a new community development corporation that will try to revitalize the Greenbush and Vilas neighborhoods on the Near West Side. The corporation will be funded by Meriter and St. Mary?s hospitals, UW-Madison and Madison Gas and Electric.

Virent, which is commercializing technology developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has 115 employees.

HotelRed near Camp Randall Stadium is set to open its doors next Tuesday after nearly four years in the making.

François Ortalo-Magné takes the helm of the Wisconsin School of Business next month following Wisconsin?s contentious battle over collective bargaining rights for public-employee unions, which has presented challenges for the state university system.

Forbes magazine says Madison is the third best city in the U.S. for young professionals. In ranking Madison No. 3, Forbes cited low unemployment, the UW-Madison and “a growing number of biotech and advertising companies.”

Madison police are investigating a stabbing and battery that occurred outside Wando?s Bar, 602 University Ave., around bar time Thursday morning.

The Wisconsin School of Business (Wisconsin Full-Time MBA Profile) has named François Ortalo-Magné as its new dean. Ortalo-Magné will take over for Interim Dean Joan Schmit on Sept. 1. He is succeeding Dean Michael Knetter, who is now the president and CEO of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the school said in a recent announcement.

Three recent UW-Madison graduates found out just how quickly the world of social media commerce can work. Corey Capasso, Andrew Ferenci and Dan Reich created a company, Spinback, whose technology includes EasyShare, a system that lets consumers share products and purchases through social media and then lets companies find out how those communications translate into sales.

It?s looking like the long-vacant 48-room hotel at the corner of Monroe and Regent streets will open in time for the first UW home football game on Sept. 1. The operators of HotelRED, which sits directly across from Camp Randall Stadium at 1501 Monroe St., announced Monday that the hiring for two key positions is complete in anticipation of opening later this summer.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison turned to a familiar face to fill its dean of the business school opening. François Ortalo-Magné, who chairs the university?s real estate and urban land economics department, has been named the dean of the Wisconsin School of Business, university officials announced Friday. Ortalo-Magné, who is an expert on the economics of the housing market, is credited with growing alumni involvement across degree programs and expanding his department?s international reach.

Real estate specialist François Ortalo-Magné has been appointed to the dean?s position at the Wisconsin School of Business, part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, north-west of Chicago.

After beginning as a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, François Ortalo-Magné will be the next dean of its School of Business.

Pool at Vitale?s, then dancing at Purlie?s, then winding down at Mr. P?s. For a generation, the three taverns within a mile of each other gave blacks on the South Side places in their neighborhood to mingle after dark ….However, since the three bars closed in the late 1990s, taverns that cater to blacks have assumed another pattern.

“We call them grand opening grand closings,” said Dwayne Williams, a UW-Madison budget analyst who has a side business as a music and events promoter.

Construction equipment and materials litter the section of road known as “old” University Avenue, while crews and sandwich-board type signs direct motorists who venture down this stretch that parallels Campus Drive to area businesses ? some of which are hurting for customers.

Wisconsin representatives Jim Sensenbrenner and Tammy Baldwin co-wrote an op-ed on a bill to reform procedures in the U.S. Patent Office, specifically objecting to expansion of “prior user rights,” which the two lawmakers contend will suffocate small business innovation and investments. Such a new system would a disastrous effect on research at universities, they wrote, including UW-Madison, which has benefited from protection of intellectual property rights through patents.

Who owns the Fluno Center? Answer: The Fluno Center is an unusual hybrid. Opened in 2000, it is owned by the Center for Advanced Studies in Business, a private, nonprofit organization established in the 1970s to support the UW-Madison School of Business.

WiRover, of Madison, was the big winner of the 2011 Wisconsin Governor?s Business Plan contest for its high-bandwidth Internet service for use on moving vehicles such as cars and buses. Developed at UW-Madison, WiRover won first place in the information technology category and was the grand prize winner of the competition.