UW–Madison Innovate Week (Oct. 10-14, 2022)
Are you a campus researcher, problem-solver, inventor, maker, entrepreneur, or social impact innovator? Are you looking to maximize impact for your research, turn your idea into a product or service, or start a company or organization?
Discover inspiring stories and practical tools to advance your idea at Innovate Week (October 10-14, 2022), coordinated by UW Discovery to Product (D2P) and the UW Innovate Network.
Innovation- and entrepreneurship-focused organizations will offer events, learning and networking opportunities, and connections to resources for faculty, students, and staff, including talks, panels, workshops, and a Resource Fair. For accommodations contacts, please see individual event listings and/or “learn more” links.
Event Schedule
10am: From Side Hustle to Small Business
2:30pm: Healthcare Innovation Office Hours with the Isthmus Project
5:30pm: Winning Ways & PartnerUp!
9am: Healthcare Innovation Office Hours with the Isthmus Project
3pm: Webinar: Employee Ownership Pushes Innovation at Isthmus Engineering and Manufacturing
6:30pm: Fetch Rewards: MVP to enterprise with founder Wes Schroll
8am: Wisconsin Biohealth Summit
5:30pm: Design Thinking Scavenger Hunt
5:30pm: Wisconsin Innovation Awards
From Side Hustle to Small Business
Monday October 10, 10 – 11:30 am (online, free, pre-registration required)
Wisconsin Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
Have you been thinking about turning your hobby into a business, but aren’t sure where to start? Do you have a side hustle that’s grown and you want to explore next steps? Are you interested in learning more about how to explore a business idea you have? This session will teach you have to use a visual business planning tool call the Business Model Canvas. This tool will help you understand how 9 functional areas of business work together to create a model of operation that can help you determine whether it is time to take the leap to full-time. The class will also give you information about resources and next steps. This class is open to anyone interested including UW-Madison faculty, staff and students.
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Healthcare Innovation Office Hours with the Isthmus Project
Monday October 10, 2:30 – 4:30 pm (virtual, free, schedule via email)
Isthmus Project, UW Health’s Innovation Hub, serves UW Health and UW School of Medicine and Public Health innovators to bring healthcare solutions to market. Isthmus Project takes pride in supporting innovators on their innovation journey from idea to market. Email Dania Champion to schedule a virtual meeting and obtain more information about Isthmus Project services.
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Winning Ways & PartnerUp!
Monday October 10, 5:30 – 6:30 pm (in-person, free, RSVP requested)
Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship
5120 Grainger Hall
975 University Ave.
Winning Ways: An Overview of Entrepreneurship Contests on Campus (5:30-5:50 p.m.)
Interested in participating in or hosting a student competition? Come join us before PartnerUp to hear about the entrepreneurship competitions on campus and how easy it is to participate. Then join us at PartnerUp to find your partner and compete!
PartnerUp (5:50-6:30 p.m.)
Are you a UW-Madison student who has a startup idea and would like to meet some potential teammates? Or are you interested in potentially joining a startup team? This session is for you! Enjoy hearing about cool student startup ideas and connect with other entrepreneurial-minded individuals. Get your business idea off to a great start and form a team to compete in the Transcend UW Innovation Competition, 100 Hour Challenge, CS NEST, and Arts Business Competition.
Sponsored by the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship, INSITE, StartUp Learning Community, and Transcend UW. If you need an accommodation to attend, please contact Lisa Collins at lisa.collins@wisc.edu by September 26.
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Healthcare Innovation Office Hours with the Isthmus Project
Tuesday October 11, 9 – 11 am (virtual, free, schedule via email)
Isthmus Project, UW Health’s Innovation Hub, serves UW Health and UW School of Medicine and Public Health innovators to bring healthcare solutions to market. Isthmus Project takes pride in supporting innovators on their innovation journey from idea to market. Email Dania Champion to schedule a virtual meeting and obtain more information about Isthmus Project services.
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Webinar: Employee Ownership Pushes Innovation at Isthmus Engineering and Manufacturing
Tuesday October 11, 3 – 4 pm (online, free, pre-registration required)
While the U.S. manufacturing sector has shrunk over the past 40 years, the fully worker- owned Isthmus Engineering & Manufacturing (IEM) cooperative has thrived in the automated manufacturing industry. IEM competes in the customized automated manufacturing machinery industry, serving customers who need solutions to complex automation challenges. IEM’s team of engineers and fabricators takes projects from concept development through proof of process to on-site installation. The co-op works in various industries such as medical and pharmaceutical, consumer products, light industrial, automotive, and emerging markets such as solar.
In this webinar, we will explore how engaging employees as owners allows IEM to foster a highly entrepreneurial and participatory work culture. Worker-owner and engineer, Ole Olson, will share how IEM approaches innovation as an organization and how democratic decision-making benefits the cooperative to be more innovative. He will touch on topics such as employee retention, equitable profit sharing, value-driven project selection, and collaborative work processes.
This session will provide information about campus resources for cooperative business development and is open to anyone interested including UW-Madison faculty, staff, and students. If you need an accommodation to participate, please contact Megan Webster at mawebster@wisc.edu by September 27.
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Fetch Rewards: MVP to enterprise with founder Wes Schroll
Tuesday October 11, 6:30 – 7:30 pm (in-person, free, pre-registration requested)
1610 Engineering Hall
1415 Engineering Drive
Wes attended UW-Madison 2011-2013, and since then has built the successful software startup Fetch Rewards (Top 20 free app on the Appstore). Hear how he brought Fetch Rewards from an MVP to a flourishing startup closing deals with General Mills and his advice for young entrepreneurs. Presented by Transcend UW, a UW-Madison student organization.
Open to a campus audience (students, faculty, staff). If you need an accommodation to attend this event, please contact Addison Latterell at transcenduw@gmail.com. All accommodation requests should be made no less than two weeks before the event. We will attempt to fulfill requests made after this date, but cannot guarantee they will be met.
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Wisconsin Biohealth Summit
Wednesday October 12, 8 am – 6 pm (in-person, free for students, cost to attend for others, pre-registration requested)
Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street
The annual Wisconsin Biohealth Summit from BioForward Wisconsin serves as a platform to celebrate Wisconsin’s biohealth community successes and collaborate on what’s next for the industry. UW-Madison students can join peers and biohealth industry professionals at the Biohealth Summit for free. Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Commissioning Agents, Inc., and Ideal Builders have sponsored student attendance to allow students to take part in the largest biohealth event in Wisconsin. At the event, students will have the opportunity to:
- Eat free breakfast, lunch and take part in the afternoon networking reception
- Learn from top academic and industry leaders
- Celebrate the Wisconsin Biohealth Award winners and support fellow students in the Wisconsin Biohealth Communications Competition
- Talk about your future with biohealth companies that are hiring and leave your resume during the afternoon career fair
See full schedule and learn more. Free student registrations are limited and available on a first-come basis.
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Design Thinking Scavenger Hunt
Wednesday October 12, 5:30 – 8:00 pm (in-person, free, pre-registration or drop-in)
Master of Science in Design + Innovation (MD+I) Program
Nancy Nicholas Hall, main floor lobby
1300 Linden Drive
The MS in Design + Innovation (MD+I) is pleased to present a Design Thinking Scavenger Hunt with food and prizes! This event is an opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students to connect with the current and future MD+I community over a series of missions that bring human-centered design to life across campus. Compete individually or in teams for fabulous prizes and the right to count yourself among the top UW innovators. Even for a day…. You’ll have the chance to meet other innovators, experience campus from a new perspective, learn more about the Master of Science in Design + Innovation and, of course, enjoy refreshments (if not the sweet taste of victory).
Advance registration requested; participants will also be able to drop in. If you need an accommodation to attend this event, please contact Trudy Watt, event host, at tawatt@wisc.edu. Accommodation requests should be made by September 28. We will attempt to fulfill requests made after this date, but cannot guarantee they will be met.
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Wisconsin Innovation Awards
Wednesday October 12, 5:30 – 8:30 pm (in-person, cost to attend, pre-registration requested)
Memorial Union
800 Langdon Street
The Wisconsin Innovation Awards celebrate and inspire innovation throughout the state and across all business sectors. Many finalists companies are UW-Madison spinouts or inventions, and/or were founded by UW students, faculty or alumni, including Atrility Medical, C-Motive Technologies, Re Mixers, Stellar Tech Girls, Stem Pharm, Voximetry, WiscMed and Yips Yogurt Chips. The UW-Madison Innovate Network and Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) are among the event sponsors. Cheer on the finalists and celebrate the winners at Memorial Union!
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Intellectual Property for Inventors
Thursday October 13, 11 am – 12 noon (online, free)
Charles von Simson of the Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic will provide an overview of key intellectual property issues that every inventor should consider both before and during commercialization, and then take questions from the audience. Charlie spent over twenty years in private practice in New York specializing in intellectual property transactions and litigation before becoming an Associate Clinical Professor of Law and an entrepreneur in the legal technology field. The Law & Entrepreneurship (L&E) Clinic at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provides free legal services to nascent Wisconsin entrepreneurs and early-stage companies through the work of law students supervised by faculty and private sector attorneys. For more information, email the Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic at entrepreneurhelp@law.wisc.edu.
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Distinguished Entrepreneurs Lunch
Thursday October 13, 12:15 – 1 pm (in-person, free, RSVP requested)
Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship
5110 Grainger Hall
975 University Ave.
Join us to meet Sydney Caine, Head of Industry, Health Systems at Google who manages a team that partners with some of the largest health insurers and health systems to develop digital solutions that deliver results against key business objectives. Before this position, Sydney was a Senior Account Executive at Google.. Prior to Google, Sydney was a Brand Manager at Kraft Foods overseeing the JELL-O, Kraft BBQ, Bull’s-Eye and Garland Jacks brands. She also worked at OMD and DraftFCB on businesses including McDonald’s, Bayer, Boeing and Sharpie.
Sydney graduated from the Wisconsin School of Business in 2003 with a major in marketing and a specialization in health care management. She received her MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. This campus event is open to anyone interested in entrepreneurial topics.
If you need an accommodation to attend, please contact Lisa Collins at lisa.collins@wisc.edu by September 29.
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RED Talks with Raj Rajamani: How We Created $50B of Value Using Machine Learning in Security
Thursday October 13, 3 – 4 pm (in-person, free, pre-registration requested)
School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS)
1240 Computer Sciences
1210 W. Dayton St.
Raj Rajamani has served as SentinelOne’s Chief Product Officer since August 2019. From May 2014 to February 2017, Mr. Rajamani served as Vice President of Product Management at Cylance.
In this talk, Mr. Rajamani will take you on a time machine ride to explore the technology used by leading Cybersecurity products, starting with some of the earliest products from the 90s (signature-based detection) through the 2000s that saw the advent of Intrusion Prevention technology and whitelisting, the 2010s in which AI/ML was used in a pioneering manner, and to the state of the art in the 2020s.
Mr. Rajamani holds a B.E. (Hons.) in Computer Science from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an M.B.A from the University of California-Berkeley, Haas School of Business.
This RED Talk is hosted by Computer Sciences Professor Patrick McDaniel.
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Entrepreneurons: Lessons Learned: UW-Madison Student Startup Founders Share Their Stories and Where They Go from Here
Thursday October 13, 4 – 5 pm (in-person and livestreamed, free, pre-registration requested)
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)
DeLuca Forum, Discovery Building
330 N. Orchard St.
Entrepreneurship takes many forms at UW-Madison. Students are key players in taking UW innovation to the marketplace, as founders themselves or as members of startup teams with other students, faculty and researchers. Meet four recent UW-Madison alumni who were startup founders and team leaders as undergraduate and graduate students. They will share how they did it, where their entrepreneurial journey has taken them, and what they wish they’d known. This panel will offer insights for any innovator as well as illustrate how entrepreneurial thinking and skills apply in startups, established businesses and social impact initiatives.
Panelists:
- Joel Baraka ’22, Founder and CEO, My Home Stars; Project Engineer, CG Schmidt
- Kit Chow ’21, Co-Founder and CEO, Boosted Chews; Co-Founder and COO, Internship on Demand
- Max Fergus ’18, CEO and Co-Founder, LÜM; Partnerships Lead, Platform & Ecosystem, Metaplex Studios
- Keerthana Sreenivasan ’20, MS’22, Project Manager, Earth RepAIR student team; Environmental Management Consultant, Arcadis
Moderator: Cecily Brose, Innovation and Commercialization Mentor, Discovery to Product (D2P)
This event will be held at the Discovery Building and will also be livestreamed on Zoom.
Entrepreneurons will be followed by the Resource Fair: Learn, Connect, Innovate!
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Resource Fair: Learn, Connect, Innovate!
Thursday October 13, 5 – 6 pm (in-person, free, drop-in)
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)
Discovery Building
330 N. Orchard St.
Calling all UW-Madison innovators – faculty, students and staff! Stop by this “one-stop shop” resource fair to meet the experts and discover the organizations that can help you advance your idea. Whether you are looking to maximize impact for your research, turn your idea into a product or service, start a company or organization, or just learn about entrepreneurship or social impact innovation, it’s never too early or too late to connect with the people, resources and programs that can help.
Participating organizations include:
Badger Product Club
Center for Technology Commercialization
Discovery to Product (D2P) and the Innovate Network
Doyenne Group
Engineering, Business and Entrepreneurship
Forward BIOLABS
Insight Wisconsin
Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) – Dissemination and Implementation Launchpad
Isthmus Project
Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic
Master of Science in Design + Innovation
StartingBlock Madison
StartUp Learning Community
Transcend UW
UW Center for Cooperatives
UW Libraries
Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)
Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC)
Wisconsin Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
Wisconsin Technology Council and the Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest
WiSolve
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Healthcare Innovation Office Hours with the Isthmus Project
Friday October 14, 9 – 11 am (virtual, free, schedule via email)
Isthmus Project, UW Health’s Innovation Hub, serves UW Health and UW School of Medicine and Public Health innovators to bring healthcare solutions to market. Isthmus Project takes pride in supporting innovators on their innovation journey from idea to market. Email Dania Champion to schedule a virtual meeting and obtain more information about Isthmus Project services.
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I-Corps Program Information Session
Friday, October 14, 11:30 am– 1:00 pm (in-person, free, lunch provided, pre-registration requested)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) created I-Corps (Innovation Corps) to bridge the gap between fundamental research discoveries in science, and the commercialization of technologies. This program has been adopted by other federal agencies including NIH, NASA, Department of Defense and Department of Energy to support innovation development. Hear from members of three D2P-mentored UW–Madison teams that completed the regional and national I-Corps Teams Programs. Learn how participating in I-Corps programs could advance your innovation at this information session designed for UW researchers, faculty, postdocs and students.
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Looking for campus innovation and entrepreneurship events all year long? Check out the Innovate events calendar and subscribe to the Innovate Insider e-news to receive news and updates.
Looking for more tech events across Wisconsin? In September 2021, Governor Evers proclaimed October as Wisconsin Tech Month, and there are events across the state to attend during the month.
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