Inside Wisconsin

In the spring of 2013, just before she was confirmed as the next UW–Madison chancellor by the Board of Regents, Rebecca Blank was criticized by some Republican state legislators for her “radical policies.”

There are many things Becky Blank will miss about her time as chancellor at UW–Madison, from game days to visiting Union Terrace to simply meeting with students and faculty. She won’t miss the red tape involved in repairing or constructing campus facilities.

In the closing round of the 2022 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest, all three finalists in the “advanced manufacturing” category offered ideas for dealing with threats to water supply.

Brent Ridge worked for years just a few hundred yards from a nuclear waste storage site at the Columbia Generating Station near Richland, Washington. Because he was vice-chairman of the Nuclear Safety Review Board for Columbia, Ridge was confident he wasn’t putting his health in danger by working that close to radioactive material.

From three plans for cleaning large amounts of water to a nutraceutical to keep your dog from itching, and from medical science breakthroughs to novel ways to employ artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and software, the “Diligent Dozen” in the 2022 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest represent a cross section of tech innovation in Wisconsin.

It’s no longer a case of Wisconsin companies needing to compete against their peers in Illinois, Minnesota, or other neighboring states for technology talent. It has become a national and international contest, thanks in large part to the rise of remote work.

The village and town of Plover near Stevens Point are not unlike many mid-sized communities in Wisconsin, with tidy homes, stores, schools, restaurants, parks, and more. But Plover has something hard to find in most other places: It has an organized group of early-stage investors.

For those people who live in the Madison area or often pass through, the evolution of Exact Sciences in a physical sense has been nothing short of dramatic.

Two years ago, when the bill was called “The Endless Frontier Act,” Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher was among four bipartisan members of Congress who took the lead in pushing for deeper federal investment in science and technology to reenergize economic growth.

The numbers are hard to dispute: Kids who attend organized but relatively inexpensive preschool programs are more likely to graduate from high school, to earn more as adults, to stay off welfare, and to avoid spending time in jail.