By Brian E. Clark
WisBusiness Staff
More than 375 participants – up from 325 last year – are expected for the 2007 Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium at the Monona Terrace Convention Center.
The gathering, which will be held today and tomorrow, is sponsored by the Wisconsin Technology Council and will attract investors and businessmen and women who need backing to turn their dreams into commercial products.
For more than 20 years, this conference and its predecessors have helped fuel Wisconsin’s high-growth economy by matching investors, companies and entrepreneurs, said Tom Still, president of the Tech Council.
Still said about two dozen companies will be telling their tales to financiers from around the Midwest. He said the biggest group consists of biomedical firms, with additional representation from advanced manufacturing, software, advanced manufacturing, “cleantech” and information technology companies.
He said attendees can hear the success story of a Wisconsin-born astronaut who moved on to a career in small business and engineering, plus tales from a popular corporate “futurist” who works for one of the world’s leading technology solutions companies.
Jeff Wacker, a director of strategy for EDS in Plano, Texas, and the company’s futurist, will speak during today’s luncheon. Still said Wacker’s “IT3+” presentation on the future of information technology more than three years into the future is requested worldwide for corporations and governments looking to use emerging technologies as a means of identifying, creating and sustaining competitive advantage.
Speaking during the SBIR Awards Dinner tonight will be Mark Lee, a Viroqua native and the director of special projects at Affiliated Engineers, Inc. Still said Lee has a unique background in program management, research and education gained through his career as an astronaut with NASA and a pilot and engineer with the U.S. Air Force. As an astronaut, Lee circled the globe 517 times during four shuttle missions and spent 33 days in space. He was one of only eight astronauts to walk in space, untethered, with a jet pack.
Lee currently manages several projects for Affiliated Engineers, Inc., including overseeing the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a multi-disciplinary research complex to be located on the UW-Madison campus. He was the recipient of two SBIR grants while working with early stage companies.
The annual conference also includes a number of networking events, panel discussions and company presentations, such as the Wisconsin Angel Network Investors’ track and the Elevator Pitch Olympics.
Still said the VentureQuest educational seminar should also be popular. It teaches entrepreneurs how to prepare their companies to look for investors. This “venture readiness” workshop is led by the founders of VentureQuest Ltd., a Denver-based firm with a national reputation for getting companies ready to compete for private-equity investment dollars.
At the First Look Forum, hosted by the UW-Madison Office of Corporate Relations, speakers will provide a sneak peek at new technologies under development on campus.
Still said the plenary panels both days will be winners. Today’s session, which begins at 8:30 a.m., will feature stories from three recent Badger State successes: TomoTherapy Nimblegen and Third Wave Technologies.
On Thursday, the panel will focus on the so-called “Ten Commandments of Angel Investing.” Still said they aren’t written on a stone tablet, but they have been handed down from experienced investors who have worked with early-stage companies.
The participants include Geoff Bastow, Thin Air Software; Teresa Esser, Silicon Pastures; Dick Leazer, Wisconsin Investment Partners. Still said angel investor networks in Wisconsin are blosoming. The state now has at least 17 such groups, up from one just three years ago.
