Wisconsin receives Recovery Act grant for broadband mapping

Wisconsin among the states awarded a grant by NTIA’s State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program to fund broadband mapping and planning activities. The program, funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, will increase broadband access and adoption through better data collection and broadband planning. The data will be displayed in NTIA’s national broadband map, a tool that will inform policymakers' efforts and provide consumers with improved information on the broadband Internet services available to them.

Michigan, Wisconsin in top 10 of social media mentions

The University of Michigan was ranked the number one college in a recent survey based on measurements of social media mentions and Internet traffic according to an independent national analysis, topping Harvard University, previously ranked number one, and accompanying UW-Madison in the top 10.

Cashing in on grant opportunities

Biotech Takes/Steven S. Clark: Maybe you are a small Wisconsin business, a Wisconsin health care company, a state agency or even a university researcher and would like to glean some of the largess from the federal recovery act. Or, perhaps you have a timely project that could use funding from a state agency or a private foundation. If so, what would you give for a 55% success rate in securing these highly competitive dollars? Over the last six years, an Ohio-based company has been providing this grant success rate for a wide range of national clients.

Ideas to Profits Conference encourages innovation in Wisconsin

Inventors seeking ways to move their product ideas forward toward commercialization found a wealth of information and resources at the eighth annual Wisconsin Innovation Service Center 2009 Ideas to Profits Conference. While five Inventors Showcase and Competition contestants received prizes of research services, prototype development and legal services valued from $500 to $3000, all of the 24 contestants and 139 conference attendees benefited from the opportunity to network with and learn from other inventors, entrepreneurs and product development experts.

Johnson Controls wins $87 million green project

A joint venture partner of Johnson Controls' Building Efficiency business in Saudi Arabia, Al Salem Johnson Controls JV, was awarded an $87 million project to supply energy-efficient chillers at Princess Noura bint Abdulrahman University. The university is being built in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. After installation, the chillers should save a significant amount of energy and water.

Press releases and other news

• Researchers team up for stem cell work
  Source: SF Gate
• Seven secrets of a Steve Jobs presentation
  Source: Washington Post
• IBM CEO Sam Palmisano Talks With Global CIO
  Source: Bob Evans for InformationWeek

An open letter to Sprint CEO — Is Sprint improving customer service?

Global Fusion/Mike Klein: Am I the only one completely confused and upset with Sprint's poor customer service? My experience involves them selling products under false pretense, breach of contract and not honoring sales claims by Sprint's sales and customer support representatives. Perhaps it's time for us as consumer to rise and file another Class Action Law Suit. (In August Sprint had to to pay $15M to settle its most recent case.) Haven't you had enough?

Appleton to share IT services with Grand Chute

The Common Council on Wednesday approved a trial agreement to provide technology services to Grand Chute. On a 14-2 vote, aldermen granted the town's request to have the city provide network support services to the town for an annual fee of $20,000.The town has the option of buying additional network support service during off hours for $90 an hour. Read Full Story

Merck CEO 'actively looking' for biotech deals

Merck CEO `Actively Looking' for Biotech Deals...A day after closing Merck's $41 billion takeover of Schering-Plough, Merck CEO Dick Clark showed that his appetite for deal-making hasn't been sated. Clark told us today that the newly combined company is “actively looking” for biotechs to buy or partner with. Read More

Press releases and other news

• Private equity investor turnout will be strong for Nov. 10-11 Wisconsin Early Stage Symposium
  Source: Wisconsin Technology Council
• Google offers users a peek at stored data
  Source: New York Times
• IBM's new CIO sheds light on priorities and plans
  Source: Bob Evans for InformationWeek

On Madison visit, Obama says the U.S. needs greater emphasis on math and science education

Exactly one year after his historic election to the White House, President Barack Obama came to a racially diverse charter school in Madison Wednesday to outline his plans for education reform."The United States, a nation that has always led the way in innovation, is now being outpaced in math and science education," Obama said in detailing his Race to the Top education initiative.

In the 'race to the top,' Wisconsin offers education examples to build upon

Inside Wisconsin/Tom Still: President Obama showed up at Madison's Wright Middle School Wednesday to talk about reforming education, but that topic may not have been top of mind for everyone who came to hear him. It was the day after Democrats lost races for governor in Virginia and New Jersey, two states where Obama made personal appeals, and during a time in which Congress is stewing over health-care reform, troop levels in Afghanistan and legislation to extend unemployment benefits. In case anyone was listening, however, the setting was as good a place as any to talk about what it will take to produce better educated citizens. Read Full Column

President Obama remarks in Madison, Wisconsin, $4B "Race to the Top" science and math education and innovation efforts

Guest Column/Barack Obama: President Obama delivered remarks in Madison about a clean energy economy that will free America from the grip of foreign oil and generate millions of good-paying jobs in the process. He spoke about offering the best possible education to America's sons and daughters. "The prosperity of our nation has long rested on how well we educate our children," said Obama. But, this has never been more true than it is today. In the 21st century - when countries that out-educate us today will out compete us tomorrow - there is nothing that will determine the quality of our future as a nation or the lives our children will lead more than the kind of education we provide them." "We're putting over $4 billion on the table -- $4 billion with a "b" -- one of the largest investments that the federal government has ever made in education reform." "So it's going to take that kind of effort from parents to set a high bar in the household. Don't just expect teachers to set a high bar. You've got to set a high bar in the household all across America."

Interview: Vivek Kundra, Fed CIO on the commerialization of government data and the use of social networks to spur innovation

Global Fusion/Mike Klein: The government is committing to the power of cloud computing and collecting and sharing information from social networks and government databases to spark domestic and global innovation as well commercial opportunities to mine and offer new applications from this data, such as GPS. I recently attended the Gartner Symposium IT/xpo 2009 at which the Federal CIO, Vikek Kunda addressed the needs of all CIOs in the public and private sectors to get more support and engagement from their bosses and stakeholders. He discussed how public sector CIOs need to shift the focus away purely from data centers and networks to focusing on solving problems that people care about. Kundra said, "It's a 10-year journey as we look at moving towards this direction, because there are number of barriers that need to be addressed, number one being security." He also discussed as more business processes move to the digital world, there is going to be greater IT investments. He is concerned about is not necessarily the investments are being made, but where we are making them.

Fifty years of expanding girls' horizons in science, math

MADISON - Julie Grove vividly remembers the day she discovered the field that would become her career. As a high-school student in the mid-1980s, she spent a day at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of Expanding Your Horizons (EYH), a daylong conference designed to expose young women to careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

Tech's forgotten co-founders

Guest Column/Preethi Dumpalaj, Silicon Valley Insider: Founders of successful companies are the celebrities of the business world. They are photographed and written about, their every move is analyzed and speculated, and they are the stars at industry events. Well, most of them. A few co-founders do get overlooked by the media. Why? Some choose to stay out of the spotlight. Unlike the other YouTube cofounders who joined Google, Jawed Karim decided to go back to school. Some have partners whose personalities overshadow theirs. Ronald Wayne quit Apple when fellow cofounder Steve Jobs began taking on debt without consulting him.

Social media enables marketing ‘by the numbers’ using new data models

Social Meteor/Troy Janisch: The biggest byproduct of the world economy? Data. This makes it difficult to overlook the implications complex mathematical models have on being an effective marketer. The Numerati, by Stephen Baker, demonstrates the influences that powerful processors and piles of data have on understanding — and leveraging — human behavior in a data-driven society.

Exact Sciences pares its Q3 net losses

Exact Sciences, a colorectal cancer screening firm, is thriving after its move to Wisconsin, having swung from negative revenues a year ago to $1.3 million in third-quarter sales and paring its Q3 net losses by more than one-third. The move to Wisconsin four months ago seems to agree with Exact Sciences Corp., which swung from negative revenues to positive top-line numbers during the third quarter and narrowed its Q3 net loss.

Press releases and other news

• SugarSync sweetens file syncing for small businesses
  Source: TechCrunch
• Google's Eric Schmidt on what the web will look like in 5 years
  Source: ReadWriteWeb
• Cisco and EMC form venture to serve data centers
  Source: New York Times

Technology leadership and increased IT project transparency, procurement and cloud computing, Interview with Fed CIO, Vivek Kundra: Part two

Global Fusion/Mike Klein: Technology leadership and increased IT project transparency and procurement processes are big concerns facing all CIOs not only in the public sector, but the private sector as well, especially in this time of flat to shrinking budgets, furloughs, and increased demands for transparency and accountability. Federal CIO, Vikek Kundra addresses the role of the CIO in the public sector and provided many examples of how government IT leaders can be more responsive and innovative by utilizing technology and improved procurement processes to be more proactive and provide better and more data available to their stakeholders and the public. This is part two of a multi-part interview on a wide scope of government IT projects to reduce costs, time of deployment, reduce IT failures and provide more transparency for their IT projects.

In Congress, a call to review internal cybersecurity policies

House leaders on Friday called for an "immediate and comprehensive assessment" of congressional cybersecurity policies, a day after an embarrassing data breach that led to the disclosure of details of confidential ethics investigations. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said they had asked the chief administrative officer of the House to report back to them on the policies and procedures for handling sensitive data as a result of the breach.

Regulation 2.0 – hopefully NOT Regulation 1.0 (squared)

Guest Column/Mark McDonald: Regulation 2.0 will be shaped as a direct response to the shortcomings of existing regulatory regimes, the potential of emerging technologies and the desire to incorporate state and non-state actors into regulatory regimes. Regulation 1.0 is based on prohibitions defining the wrong things in society rather than encouraging people to do the right thing. Part of Regulation 2.0’s foundation will be based on providing positive incentives for the right behavior rather and Regulation 1.0’s approach to prohibiting behavior.

Will the digital divide close by itself?

On the subject of tech and education, academics and executives are worried about many divides. There’s the growing divide between kids who have access to technology and those who don’t; kids who participate in creating content with technology at home and school, and those who can’t; and the kids who know a lot about technology, and the parents who fear them.

Press releases and other news

• Ten tips on purchasing financial software
  Source: Baseline
• Despite slump, venture firm sets up $575 million fund
  Source: New York Times

Sonic Foundry plans reverse stock split in move to avoid delisting from NASDAQ

Sonic Foundry founded in 1991 and best known for its patented webcasting technology MediaSite Live has until Dec. 21 to raise its stock price to $1 or more per share for at least 10 trading days or risk being delisted from the Nasdaq Capital Market.The company's stock has been selling for less than $1 a share since early 2008. In an effort to raise the value of its stock Sonic Foundry's Board of Directors has authorized a one-for-ten reverse stock split of its common stock.

Regulation 2.0 – hopefully NOT Regulation 1.0 (squared)

Guest Column/Mark McDonald: Regardless of your political philosophy, the role of government in today’s economy is a reality in most if not all countries. The challenge for elected and government officials, in my opinion, is not the need for regulatory change, but how will they use technology tools to create proactive rather than reactive policies and legislation. Regulation 1.0 was responsibly reactive.

Press releases and other news

• HIPAA violators could face fines of up to $1.5M
  Source: Healthcare IT News