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The statewide Wisconsin YES! youth business plan contest will close to entries 5 p.m. Monday, March 17.

Public, private and home-schooled students across Wisconsin are eligible to turn their science- and tech-related ideas into business plans and compete for cash and prizes. The contest begins with a 250-word summary submitted through the website – www.WisconsinYES.com. Entries that advance to Phase 2 of the competition will expand their idea into a 1,000-word executive summary. Read more about the contest here.

Gov. Scott Walker proclaimed the week leading up to the March 17 deadline as the “Celebration of STEM Education Week” statewide. STEM components, which include science, technology, engineering and mathematics, are considered vital to the intellectual and economic future of Wisconsin. 

The celebration aims to involve STEM-centered organizations, businesses and educational institutions across the state. The number of skilled individuals needed in STEM industries is enormous, and growing, making it more and more crucial to promote the education of students in these disciplines. Read more about STEM Week in Tom Still's Wisconsin State Journal column here.

Four new leaders in positions that help define the economic and business development role of the University of Wisconsin System, including the UW-Madison campus, will be featured at the March 25 meeting of the Wisconsin Innovation Network in Madison.

Attendees will be able to hear from four people who recently began work in roles that shape how the university deals with business growth, whether on campus or beyond. They are:

• John Biondi, director of the new Discovery to Product program at UW-Madison, which will help identify and assist emerging companies on campus.
• Susan LaBelle, director of the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations, which serves as a “front door” to the university for businesses of all sizes.
• Greg Robinson, general partner of the 4490 Venture Fund, which is a $30-million joint venture of the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation and the State of Wisconsin Investment Board. The fund will focus on information technology investments across Wisconsin and beyond.
• Arjun Sanga, director of the WiSys Technology Foundation, which helps to facilitate tech development on UW System campuses outside Madison and Milwaukee.

Learn more and get registered here.

A new venture capital fund that will concentrate on Wisconsin-based information technology companies has named its general partner.

Greg Robinson, a veteran of the Silicon Valley venture scene, will oversee the $30 million fund created last year by the State of Wisconsin Investment Board and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

Robinson, 45, most recently was a partner with Peninsula Ventures, which has put more than $100 million in early stage money into small companies, primarily IT firms.

That's a focus similar to that envisioned for the new Wisconsin fund, dubbed 4490 Ventures after latitude and longitude coordinates that intersect more or less in the center of the state.

Classified national security research could be done by University of Wisconsin System professors if a bill currently before the Legislature passes.

If the bill passes, System schools would join a growing list of universities nationally that conduct classified federal research, meaning research that must be kept secret for military or other security reasons. Fourteen universities nationally host a University Affiliated Research Center sponsored by the federal Department of Defense. Among Big Ten schools, Penn State and Nebraska are the only ones with one of the research centers.

The bill cleared the Assembly and had a hearing in a Senate committee last week. Read the full Wisconsin State Journal story here.

Tech-based innovation across America; Wisconsin is far from alone
As the Wisconsin Legislature rolls toward a spring wrap-up of its work, economic development items on its agenda range from protecting intellectual property from “patent trolls” to setting the stage for more classified research to rethinking the state’s sore-thumb tax on capital raised by many young companies.

Tech Summit aims to align state's business orbits
Produced by the Wisconsin Technology Council and partners that include some well-known Milwaukee-area companies, the Tech Summit will provide an organized way for young companies and corporate giants to meet and explore likely business relationships around technology needs and innovation.

In small ways, Wisconsin still makes it hard on emerging companies
With angel and venture capital investment dollars scarce for many young companies, the question arises: Why is Wisconsin virtually alone in taxing capital raised by those companies?

Behind the Obamacare numbers; the (re)rise of the creative class
Just when you thought you had the politics of the pro- and anti-Obamacare debate figured out, along come some pesky numbers to upset your thinking.

Journal Sentinel: AquaMost strives to capitalize on fracking boom
In drilling for gas and oil, one of the biggest problems is water. Companies using fracking methods to extract gas and oil from previously unreachable rock formations must have the right quality of water to inject at high pressures into their wells, and they need to figure out what to do with the contaminated water that results. Among companies working to address these issues is Madison-based AquaMost LLC.

Xconomy: Wisconsin restaurant ordering platform EatStreet raises $3.7M
EatStreet, the online restaurant ordering platform based in Madison, WI, has raised $3.7 million in a financing round, according to a document filed this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

WisBusiness: Thompson ponders personal investment in state health startups
Former GOP Gov. and national health secretary Tommy Thompson said he hopes to sell off four of his businesses within the next year and start an angel fund to help Wisconsin start-ups focusing on health care technology. Thompson made the comments in a presentation Thursday to about 50 entrepreneurial hopefuls at a Wisconsin Innovation Network meeting in Wauwatosa. Some attendees raised their hands and asked him point-blank for money.

Wisconsin Innovation Network (WIN) is The Tech Council's membership subsidiary - a community-based economic development organization dedicated to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. In association with the Tech Council, WIN programs focus on the needs and challenges faced by new and growing technology-based businesses in Wisconsin.

Corporate Members
Adana Holdings Company
BloodCenter of WI
City of Fitchburg
Fine Point Consulting