NovoMoto, a Madison social enterprise that provides clean electricity for off-grid rural communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo with solar-powered systems, took home the grand prize at the 2018 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest! NovoMoto also won the contest’s Business Services category. The NovoMoto team is comprised of Mehrdad Arjmand (MEB ’14 and WAVE ’15) and Aaron Olson (MEB ’13 and WAVE ’15). Both have their Ph.D. in engineering mechanics from UW-Madison.
DataChat, a Madison company that builds chatbots that allow business users to extract insight from their data simply by talking to the chatbot, placed first in the Information Technology category. Jignesh Patel is a professor of computer sciences and is working with Ph.D. student Rogers Jeffrey Leo John (MEB ’18 and WAVE ’18).
Pyran, a Madison company with renewable chemicals for everyday plastics, placed second in the Advanced Manufacturing category. Pryan won the “Bright New Idea” award as a first-time contestant. Kevin Barnett (MEB ’17) is the founder and is currently working on his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering.
This contest draws hundreds of entries from across the state. Given the high level of the competition, it speaks highly of the quality of the ideas and the hard work that UW students and faculty have devoted to their startups. The students come from across the campus and have participated in the Morgridge Entrepreneurial Bootcamp (MEB), the Weinert Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship (WAVE) and the WSB Business Plan Competition and have utilized many other resources in the Madison entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Katie Brenner (MEB ’14) won the 2015 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest. She is the co-founder of bluDiagnostics, a company that is developing a device aimed at helping women who struggle with infertility.
Congratulations to all of the winners! Read More