Making innovative UW System and UW-Madison technologies available to industry in northeast Wisconsin was the topic of a recent Tech Council Innovation Network meeting in Appleton.

The Dec. 13 meeting was held at Fox Valley Technical College.

Greg Keenan, the accelerator program manager for the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and Jennifer Cook, the associate director for the WiSys Technology Foundation, walked through an overview of each organization’s portfolio of technologies available for licensing.

WARF has been the patenting and licensing arm of the UW-Madison since the 1920s. It has recently stepped up efforts to nurture its portfolio of 1,900 issued U.S. patents and 750 pending patents by working with startups, mature companies in search of innovation, investors and other partners.

WiSys performs the same functions as WARF for the UW System’s other four-year campuses except UW-Milwaukee, which has its own research foundation. While much younger than WARF, WiSys has 73 active technologies in its portfolio and is handling more invention “disclosures” each fiscal year.

Cook described five examples of WiSys Technologies: Compostable thermostat polymers developed at UW-Stevens Point; transparent dilatant materials, also from UW-Stevens Point; an industrial furnace and oven from UW-Oshkosh; a microparticle generator for invasive species control, especially unwanted fish, from UW-Platteville; and a mechanically integrated vertical wind turbine from UW-Green Bay.

She also discussed the Wisconsin Small Company Advancement Program, a prototype center at UW-Platteville and UW-Parkside’s App Factory. Read the full story here.