Student inventors featured

The bright ideas of university student entrepreneurs will be showcased in Milwaukee Tuesday, Feb. 22, during a program on high-tech business growth in Wisconsin.

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The free public presentation will be held at Milwaukee’s Italian Community Center, 631 East Chicago St. A reception begins at 5:30 p.m. and the program starts at 6:15 p.m.

John Bollinger, dean emeritus of the College of Engineering, will discuss how UW–Madison acts as a driving force in the technology-based economy in Wisconsin, through the transfer of research advances and creation of spinoff companies.

He will also introduce three successful student entrepreneurs who took their high-tech ideas from college to the marketplace. They include:

• Scott Westmont and Sean Smith, who started the company Beacon Systems LLC, to commercialize a safer type of binding for waveboards, a type of slalom water skis.
• Joe Saari, founder of the business Precision Information LLC, will describe his web-based software programs for the personal finance market. The company recently contracted with the online investment firm Ameritrade.

The students are past winners of the Technology Enterprise Competition, a program that provides awards of up to $10,000 for creating technology-based business plans.