LAKE GENEVA — Stem cell researcher Jamie Thomson, conservationist Aldo Leopold, flamboyant Liberace. Visionary architecture, below-zero tailgating, cheese curds that squeak. House on the Rock, Taliesin, Harley.
Wisconsin is a place where you can feel free to be yourself and express yourself. This is the conclusion of a five-month branding project undertaken by the state Department of Tourism and announced Tuesday night by Gov. Jim Doyle at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism.
Wisconsin Union administration sent an e-mail to its student staff Tuesday, announcing plans to host listening sessions for employees in response to a letter written last week that voiced complaints about Union management.
The Wisconsin Union will hold a series of forums in the coming weeks to hear student employeesâ?? concerns with management and operations in the facilities, officials announced Tuesday.
After a year without a key leader in place, North Milwaukee State Bank has hired a chief executive who wants to help the bank get more deeply involved in small-business lending and urban economic development.
In Erbert Johnson, who spent the past decade in Cleveland working in public finance and banking, North Milwaukee also found a local guy who has returned to the community wanting to do some good. Johnson majored in aacounting at UW-Madison.
A new proposal in the state Assembly would require all cheese served in University of Wisconsin System campuses to come exclusively from Wisconsin cheese manufacturers.
Charter Communications lost nearly 3 percent of its cable TV subscribers in Madison during the fourth quarter — a period during which its numbers had been essentially steady in the previous three years, the city of Madison reported.
Charter cable TV subscribers in the city went from 57,156 last October to 55,559 last December, a decline of 2.7 percent. By contrast, the company posted slight increases in the same period in 2006 and 2005 and a slight decrease in 2004 (see accompanying chart).
The obvious difference last year compared to the prior three years was the Big Ten Network, which Charter does not have a deal to carry but competitors such as satellite providers DirecTV and DISH Network have been carrying since last summer.
The state Senate voted in favor of allowing the University of Wisconsin to construct an addition to the School of Veterinary Medicine late last week.
If the University of Wisconsin business school ever writes a case study about itself, the lesson may be that some things are more valuable unsold.
Condé Nast Portfolio reports that the school persuaded alumni to donate $85 million in exchange for a promise that it would not sell its name for the next 20 years.
Sometimes, a bird in the hand isn’t worth anywhere near two in the bush. In September, the University of Washington School of Business struck a $50 million deal with a family foundation to rebrand itself the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington, honoring its largest donor. But as precious a commodity as a school’s name may be, it could prove far more valuable unsold.
In October, the University of Wisconsin School of Business announced that about a dozen alumni had donated a total of $85 million to keep it from selling its name for the next 20 years. In the months since, the value of the school’s name has already appreciated by about $2 million, according to the calculations of Dean Mike Knetter. It took Knetter two years of smooth talking to convince alumni that cash donations remained even more valuable without naming rights.
In your Feb. 21 article titled “Challenges remain for biotech,” The Capital Times reviewed an interesting talk given at the University of Wisconsin last week by Steve Burrill, a venture capitalist who has created a very successful business focused on biotechnology investments. In the talk, Burrill presented his viewpoints on the biotech industry as an investment.
As a biotechnology industry advocate, scientist, and entrepreneur of over 20 years and as a father to three children, I found the article and Steve’s talk too pessimistic and narrow in scope.
Three statewide organizations with far-reaching constituencies have mounted strategic initiatives that see Wisconsin’s economic challenges in clear terms and then raise the bar on where the state should be headed.
They are the University of Wisconsin System, Competitive Wisconsin and a new entity called Wisconsin Way.
A disputed stem-cell patent held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation was upheld Thursday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent was one of three held by WARF under review.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office decided Thursday to uphold the terms of one of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundationâ??s three previously contested stem-cell patents.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office announced Thursday they upheld the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundationâ??s patent on human embryonic stem cell technology discovered by University of Wisconsin researcher James Thomson.
Countering a poll paid for by the cable industry, an NFL Network-affiliated group has paid for a survey that produced very different results on topics that include a legislative proposal that would create a neutral arbitration process to settle disputes between cable providers and channels such as NFL Network.
The survey of 500 likely Wisconsin voters shows that 65.8 percent of the respondents support and 21.8 percent oppose state legislation creating a neutral arbitration system that could be used to resolve the current programming dispute between cable companies and independent channels like the NFL Network.
Quoted: UW-Madison telecommunications professor Barry Orton
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has upheld one of the three disputed University of Wisconsin patents on a technique for isolating and maintaining embryonic stem cells. But the two groups that have challenged the patents say they will continue their efforts to overturn that patent, and the two other related ones.
MADISON, Wis. – A federal agency has upheld a patent that covers embryonic stem cell research, rejecting a challenge from critics who say the patents are hindering research.
An examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled this week that one of three patents can stand. A challenge to two other patents remains pending.
Two consumer groups said Thursday that they intend to continue challenging three key human embryonic stem cell patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office upheld the validity of one of the disputed patents.
The decision was announced just a day after the International Stem Cell Forum in San Francisco, hosted by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, concluded Wednesday.
With a government decision upholding an important 2006 patent on human stem cell techniques, biomedical researcher James Thomson and his school, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have won the latest skirmish in a long-running conflict over patents
MADISON, Wis. — Federal regulators are upholding a patent that covers embryonic stem cell research discovered at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
An examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said that one of three patents held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) can stand. It hasn’t yet ruled on two others being challenged.
Critics had asked the patent office to throw out the patents, which cover discoveries made by UW-Madison scientist James Thomson. They argue the patents have hindered research in the U.S.
One of three UW-Madison stem-cell patents under review by the federal government has been upheld in a significant step of a process that still could continue for months or years.
Each Friday a few dozen customers, mostly UW-Madison students and employees and all in on a campus secret, make the trek to Classroom 140 in the Meat Science and Muscle Biology Lab.
In a converted spice room, white-coated UW-Madison students take orders and sift through a big freezer in the middle of the room, pulling out bacon, steaks, lamb chops and the ever-popular Jordan and Clayt ‘s Hot Sticks sausages.
The UW-Madison plans to help some downtown bars and liquor stores identify underage drinkers by providing free ID scanners that can read driver’s licenses or identification cards to find out if they are real.
University of Wisconsin officials want to offer scanners to those businesses based on UW’s successful use in the Memorial Union’s Rathskeller for the past year and a half.
The technology has been gradually upgraded and about 100 false IDs were found last year, according to Union spokesman Marc Kennedy.
“We have found identification scanners to be very effective,” said Dawn Crim, acting special assistant to the UW-Madison chancellor. “We plan to offer them to establishments to assist them in making responsible sales.”
James Thomson, the UW-Madison researcher whose stem-cell discoveries have received significant international attention, has been named director of regenerative biology of the Morgridge Institute for Research.
MADISON – Gov. Jim Doyle today announced that portions of the upcoming film “Public Enemies” will be shot in Wisconsin. The movie will be directed and produced by UW alumnus Michael Mann and will star Johnny Depp and Christian Bale.
Universal Pictures reached agreement today with the Wisconsin Department of Commerce on tax credits from the new Film Production Services Tax Credit Program.
A bill that would expand the state’s oversight of for-profit colleges and universities is on a fast track after a long stalemate.
A “modernization” bill proposed by the Educational Approval Board was almost derailed by opposition from the Department of Public Instruction, which feared that the board would infringe on approval of teacher education programs or cause confusion and unnecessary expense for those seeking a teacher’s license.
But after months of stalemate, the board and DPI reached a compromise that protects the exclusive right of the state superintendent of public instruction to approve programs and schools that lead to licensure of teachers or provide professional development for them. The Colleges and Universities Committee in the Assembly is expected to approve the bill this afternoon.
Part of a new gangster movie featuring actors Johnny Depp and Christian Bale will be shot in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle confirmed Tuesday.
Depp will play the role of criminal legend John Dillinger in “Public Enemies,” a film by Universal Pictures and UW-Madison alumnus Michael Mann.
Mike Jurken doesn’t think he could get into the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – his grades aren’t good enough, and he doesn’t have time to keep up with the competitive atmosphere. Instead, he’s busy running his own company.
One of the enduring legacies Chancellor John Wiley will leave when he steps down in September is the increased non-state funding he has procured for our university. Our endowment has skyrocketed; over the Wiley years, we have joined an elite group of universities with endowments above $1 billion.
UW-Madison engineering and business school faculty and students have teamed up with Wisconsin entrepreneur Ben Hobbins to create a more durable fiber-reinforced fishing lure â?? and one that may prevent millions of pounds of toxic PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, from getting left at the bottom of lakes, stream and rivers.
That’s where SoftSwitching Technologies comes in. The Middleton company, at 8155 Forsythia St., makes equipment that corrects the flow of electricity to prevent those power glitches, known as voltage sags or dirty power, from wreaking havoc with factory processes.
Founded in 1995 by former UW-Madison electrical and computer engineering professor Deepak Divan, SoftSwitching boasts a unique technology, whose original patents are held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. SoftSwitching ‘s dynamic sag corrector, or DySC (pronounced “disk “), pulls extra power from the electric grid to fill in any gaps in the power flow.
Beginning in March, UW-Madison will offer electronic ID scanners and free training to select downtown bars and liquor stores in an effort to crack down on underage drinking and the use of fake IDs.
Rich in intellectual capital but saddled with attitudes that get in the way of leveraging it, Wisconsin needs to change its culture. So says G. Steven Burrill, the chief executive officer at Burrill & Co., a San Francisco venture capital firm whose funds invest nearly $1 billion in life sciences companies.
Burrill says he isn’t buying the state’s standard argument – that it lacks the kind of capital available on the coasts to fund new companies.
“There is more than enough capital in the world to do all the things that need to happen here, you just need to go get it,” said Burrill, who sponsors an annual business plan competition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If you had thousands of great business plans on every street corner in Madison, all the capital in the world would get pretty tired of flying here and they’d set up shop here.”
Burrill & Co. would invest its funds’ entire $1 billion in Wisconsin companies if the opportunities were there, said Burrill, a Madison native who went to UW-Madison and has a vacation home in the state.
Not too many full-time college students start their own business.
And it’s a fair bet that the ambitious few who do don’t give away their product to support a worthy cause.
But that’s what 21-year-old UW-Madison economics student Ryan Schmudlach is doing.
“That might have been a little bit of a mistake on my part,” he quipped, referring not to the charity but to his full plate, before adding that, “It’s working.”
Madison, Wis. – Greater Madison biotechnology executives should stop worrying too much about raising capital and focus on mastering a new biotech business model, according to life science venture investor G. Steven Burrill.
Burrill, founder of Burrill & Co. in San Francisco, is considered a pioneer in the world of biotechnology investing. The Madison native returned to his alma mater Thursday to deliver a lecture in the Microbial Science Building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
The University of Wisconsin is hiring students to lend some muscle and help clear the campus of ice and snow until spring provides some relief for the worn-out grounds crew.
The University of Wisconsin Union proposed Monday a 3 percent increase in its 2008-09 budget to the Student Services Finance Committee.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The state’s technical colleges are seeing a slight gain in students, which they say often happens when jobs become harder to find.
The biggest growth spurts in the past 30 years at Wisconsin technical colleges coincided with the national economic recessions of 2001, 1991 and the early 1980s. It’s still not clear whether the nation is in a recession now, but enrollment at the state’s 16 technical colleges is growing.
According to the latest estimates, the number of full-time equivalent students is up 1.8 percent compared to the last school year. In the previous two years, annual counts fell.
The verdict is still out on whether the economy has slumped into recession, but Wisconsin’s technical colleges say they’re noticing more students, which historically occurs when jobs get scarcer.
University officials said high profile 2008 presidential campaign stops at UW-Madison this week have been successful, but required much behind-the-scenes preparation.
Four years after the University of Wisconsin initially conceived renovating Union South, the university announced Thursday it has finally hired the architects for the project.
DICK ZILLMAN doesn’t like winter, which is odd when you consider the role played in his considerable success by the two snowiest winters in Madison history.
This winter — later this month — Zillman will receive the Madison Advertising Federation’s Silver Medal Award for career achievement. It’s a fitting tribute to one of Madison’s more creative and enduring advertising minds.
It was another brutal winter that helped put him on the map.
A popular Intel computer chip that is at the heart of millions of computers infringes on patented technology invented at UW-Madison, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation claims in a lawsuit against the microprocessor giant.
Madison and Marcus Corp. are discussing a much-desired Downtown hotel — perhaps the largest in the city — to serve Monona Terrace and other needs.
Marcus, which opened the 14-story, 236-room Hilton Madison at 9 E. Wilson St. adjacent to Monona Terrace in early 2001, has first option to build across the street on a parking lot behind the landmark Madison Municipal Building or the adjacent Government East parking ramp site.
The UW System Board of Regents will meet this week to discuss the salary of Chancellor Wileyâ??s successor.
It is anticipated they will raise the earnings of the next chancellor $42,500 to $125,000 more than Chancellor Wileyâ??s current salary to attract a more qualified applicant. In order to maintain a quality university, the Board of Regents would be wise to vote in favor of this increase.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation filed a lawsuit against Intel Corp. Tuesday for patent infringement, alleging technology used in the companyâ??s Core 2 Duo processor actually belongs to UW-Madison.
Wisconsin is finally getting in on all the lights, camera and action.
Itâ??s been just over a month since tax incentives for filming in Wisconsin went into effect on Jan. 1, and already several films are in preproduction within the state.
Does the city of Fitchburg really need this?
That’s the question Fitchburg residents should be asking themselves regarding the proposed 868-acre Northeast Neighborhood in the city’s far northeast corner. Or so says Cal DeWitt, UW-Madison’s highly respected environmental sciences professor.
Indeed, if Fitchburg residents took the time to look into the issue, DeWitt says, they’d quickly realize why the city would be making a huge mistake by approving the project. And why that approval could well come back to haunt the city years down the road.
In the cloistered arcade of the Memorial Union, students will soon tote lattes and textbooks rather than video-game pistols.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation has filed a lawsuit alleging patent infringement against computer giant Intel Corp.
The lawsuit filed by WARF on Tuesday in federal court in Madison charges that Intel’s CoreTM 2 Duo microprocessor is infringing on a UW-Madison invention that significantly improves the efficiency and speed of computer processing.
Intel has aggressively marketed the benefits of this invention as a feature of its Core 2 technology, WARF said in a news release.
What would the world do without potatoes?
The Irish found out during a famine, and it was not a pretty picture.
But the U.S. Potato Genebank in rural Wisconsin is playing a major role in preventing a repeat of that tragedy.
Although NeuWave looks like an embryonic company at first glance, the reality is the two University of Wisconsin-Madison professors who founded it invested about $280,000 of their own money and landed a federal grant to build a “very robust” prototype and conduct more than 100 animal trials,
Late this spring The Capital Times will dramatically enhance its Internet site as well as alter its print frequency from six days to two days per week to address changing habits of afternoon newspaper readers, company executives announced Thursday.
Publisher Clayton Frink said the newspaper’s online site, captimes.com, will feature increased volume, depth and timeliness of news, opinion and other information. He said the printed edition of the newspaper will expand its distribution by about five times and switch from six-day publication to two weekly tabloid-size editions.
“The Capital Times has been a progressive media voice in Madison for 90 years, and this move allows us to preserve that legacy and, in fact, reach far more people than ever before,” Frink said.
Intel Corp.s popular Core 2 Duo processor, the brain of many of todays personal computers, includes technology created by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers, according to a federal lawsuit accusing Intel of patent infringement.
Researchers at the future Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery would have easy access to thousands of lab rats and mice under a proposal to build a 10,000-square-foot vivarium at the Institutes ‘ West Side site, UW Madison officials said Tuesday.
How expensive is the Big Ten Network?
Thanks to BTN’s quirky pricing structure, it’s a complex question that isn’t as clear as has been stated in media reports referenced in The Capital Times last week.
BTN has received $1.10 per subscriber (and placement on basic cable) in at least some deals with providers in the Big Ten Conference states, but asks 10 cents per subscriber (and is flexible regarding placement on a higher level of service) in the rest of the country, as has been reported several times by The Capital Times.
BTN officials have repeatedly said price is a negotiable item in its so far unsuccessful efforts to reach deals with major cable companies such as Charter Communications and Time Warner. Elizabeth Conlisk, BTN vice president of communications, says its proposals to Charter and Time Warner have been well under $1.
Quoted: Mark J. Browne, who teaches risk management at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Quoted: Mark Fedenia, a co-manager of the Nakoma Absolute Return Fund and a tenured professor who was director of the Applied Security Analysis Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school for 21 years.
Botnets and viruses are something that University of Wisconsin professor of computer sciences Paul Barfordâ??s newly formed company deals with on a daily basis.
UW Athletic Department officials said Wednesday ticket prices for football, menâ??s basketball and menâ??s hockey would likely remain the same in the 2008-â??09 seasons.
