{"id":6320,"date":"2021-05-24T10:08:39","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T15:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=6320"},"modified":"2021-05-24T10:08:39","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T15:08:39","slug":"madisons-tech-sector-booms-driven-by-uw-innovation","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/madisons-tech-sector-booms-driven-by-uw-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Madison\u2019s tech sector booms, driven by UW innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo
Madison is increasingly being noticed as a hub of tech innovation, inspired in part by UW\u2013Madison technology and graduates. PHOTO: BRYCE RICHTER<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The strong growth of Madison\u2019s technology sector is drawing attention nationwide.<\/p>\n

The boom is fueled in part by UW\u2013Madison, which provides cutting-edge research, entrepreneurial graduates and researchers, and a well-educated local workforce that motivates some employers to open offices in Madison.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the country\u2019s biggest tech migration increase took place in Madison, according to LinkedIn data published by\u00a0Big Technology<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on December 17, 2020.<\/p>\n

Madison\u2019s technology labor market grew 47 percent from 2014-2019, based on data provided to\u00a0Wisconsin Public Radio<\/a>\u00a0by Lexi Russell, associate director of research and analysis for CBRE, a San Francisco investment company that tracks national real estate trends.<\/p>\n

In addition to these statistics that show real growth, Madison\u2019s growth potential stands out: In 2019, the\u00a0Brookings Institution and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation<\/a>\u00a0ranked Madison first out of 35 cities with the potential to become innovation hubs.<\/p>\n

Technology presence tied to UW\u2013Madison<\/h3>\n
\"Photo
Jason Fields<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several big technology companies have had offices in Madison for years, drawn by collaborations and recruiting opportunities at UW\u2013Madison.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoogle, Zendesk, and Microsoft are all here and all recruiting,\u201d said Jason Fields, a six-term Wisconsin State Assembly member who has been president and CEO of the Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP) since January 2021.<\/p>\n

Google opened its first Madison office in 2007 and now has over 100 employees in Madison; principal scientist and site leader Jeff Naughton, a former UW\u2013Madison professor of computer sciences, told the\u00a0Cap Times<\/a>\u00a0in 2019 that the Madison office allows Google to hire UW\u2013Madison talent.<\/p>\n

Zendesk\u2019s Madison team has grown from 5 employees in 2013 to over 300 in 2021, and the Madison office is Zendesk\u2019s Midwest regional hub.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s\u00a0Gray Systems Lab<\/a>\u00a0(GSL) is based in Madison, and the GSL team collaborates on research projects with UW\u2013Madison graduates and faculty who are affiliated with the lab. The team designs, develops, and evaluates novel database system technologies, focusing on transitioning the most successful concepts into Azure Data products. Microsoft also owns Madison-based video game development studio Roundhouse Studios.<\/p>\n

These large tech companies help anchor Madison\u2019s tech startup community, which is largely driven by UW\u2013Madison.<\/p>\n

UW\u2013Madison drives tech entrepreneurship<\/h3>\n
\"Photo
Jignesh Patel (Photo: David Tenenbaum)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To drum up enthusiasm for tech entrepreneurship among UW\u2013Madison students, Patel launched the venture creation program CS NEST<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Creative Destruction Lab<\/a>. He says having big tech companies in Madison burnishes the city\u2019s image as a technology hub.UW\u2013Madison computer sciences professor\u00a0Jignesh Patel<\/a>\u2019s first three technology startups, spinoffs of his research, were acquired by Teradata in 1997, Twitter in 2013 and Pivotal in 2015. His fourth tech startup\u00a0DataChat<\/a>, founded in 2017, makes data science accessible to anyone. The company has 20 employees and recently received $4 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps to have Microsoft and Google with big labs here, building core and leading-edge computer science technologies right here in Madison,\u201d Patel said.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fields cites an additional way in which UW\u2013Madison fuels the Madison area\u2019s tech sector growth: the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF)\u2019s support for startups.<\/p>\n

\u201cWARF files patents, licenses university technologies and invests in companies, like\u00a0C-Motive Technologies<\/a>,\u201d said Fields. Madison-based C-Motive Technologies was founded by Dan Ludois and Justin Reed, who both hold PhDs from renowned UW\u2013Madison research group the Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC).<\/p>\n

WARF Ventures funds promising tech startups based on UW\u2013Madison research, including AIQ Solutions, which came out of the University of Wisconsin Translational Imaging Research Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cAIQ is a great example of how UW researchers teamed up to find a novel solution to a real clinical problem, attracted investment from Wisconsin venture funds, and built a product,\u201d said WARF Chief Venture Officer Mike Partsch. \u201cThe company\u2019s software platform has the potential to revolutionize how clinicians treat complex diseases, starting with metastatic cancer. AIQ\u2019s ability to make early predictions about both treatment effectiveness and toxicity risk will ultimately extend lives, while decreasing the money spent on expensive yet ineffective drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

UW\u2013Madison\u2019s leadership and expertise in fusion technology and quantum computing are frequently sought out by investors, and WARF recently invested in quantum computing startup\u00a0ColdQuanta<\/a>, which uses UW\u2013Madison technology in its product and raised $35 million last year. UW\u2013Madison Physics professor and Director of the Wisconsin Quantum Institute Mark Saffman is the Chief Scientist for Quantum Information at ColdQuanta. Headquartered in Boulder, the company has an office in Madison.<\/p>\n

Teams of UW\u2013Madison alumni who launched startups in Madison have had successful exits. In 2018, ResMed acquired Madison-based Propeller Health, a maker of smart inhalers founded by UW\u2013Madison alumni, for $225 million. UW\u2013Madison alumnus Brian Raffel and his brother Steve sold Raven Software to Activision in 1997, and the company continues to produce video games for such well-known franchises as \u201cCall of Duty\u201d and \u201cStar Wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Madison Region and UW\u2013Madison have produced great leaders in our tech space,\u201d said Fields. \u201cPeople understand that these well-known video games and other technologies were created in Wisconsin, and Madison is a great place to work, play, live long-term, and raise a family. These are the assets we have that I think draw people here.\u201d<\/p>\n

A commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion<\/h3>\n

Fields points out that it\u2019s important to appeal to a diverse variety of tech workers who may want to move to Madison.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know the pitch to the guy from Stanford, but what\u2019s the pitch to the African-American, Latinx, or Hmong person to get them here? We have to send a message that everybody is welcome here,\u201d said Fields, who is also an angel investor and has personally invited the African-American founders whose companies he has invested in to move their businesses to Madison. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about innovation, technology, and a welcoming environment. To Generations X, Y, and Z, diversity is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several MadREP programs are designed to support a healthy technology sector, attract tech workers to Madison, and support the local community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working on a broadband initiative and housing,\u201d said Fields. \u201cWe have to have broadband in our surrounding areas and send the message that we support remote work.\u201d<\/p>\n

MadREP is also working on a housing fund in partnership with developers, to attract people who want to stay or relocate here, coupled with a revolving loan fund that does gap financing, so underserved entrepreneurs have access to capital. That includes businesses that surround the technology ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes a community whole and feeds into the culture,\u201d said Fields, adding that MadREP is also focused on supporting longtime residents who can benefit from jobs in technology and from roles adjacent to the technology sector. \u201cKids are phenomenal at technology, and we can show them that they can be a part of this community and be leaders of where this community goes, and if our older population needs to learn a new skill set, technology can help level the playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n

At UW\u2013Madison, the\u00a0Dream Up Wisconsin<\/a>\u00a0competition fosters tech innovation for social good, and 2021 winner\u00a0ConnectRx Wisconsin<\/a>\u00a0is a partnership with Epic that aims to integrated Dane County healthcare and social service systems by building on existing electronic health record technology. Second place winner\u00a0Opportunity Calculator<\/a>\u00a0hopes to develop a mobile platform to give workers fast, accurate information about how career and training opportunities could affect their net incomes. Both teams have diverse leadership and community partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cDreamUp Wisconsin offers the exciting opportunity for area innovators to apply tech-based strategies to increase the income of 10,000 Dane County residents,\u201d said director and UW\u2013Madison professor Lonnie Berger. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t be more proud of the winning teams\u2019 accomplishments and their commitment to both increasing family incomes and decreasing racial disparities in income and employment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The strong growth of Madison\u2019s technology sector is drawing attention nationwide. The boom is fueled in part by UW\u2013Madison, which provides cutting-edge research, entrepreneurial graduates and researchers, and a well-educated local workforce that motivates some employers to open offices in Madison. In 2020, the country\u2019s biggest tech migration increase took place in Madison, according to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6323,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-6320","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/6320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=6320"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=6320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}