Ideas to Profits Conference in Appleton Oct. 1

The annual Ideas to Profits Conference, sponsored by the Wisconsin Innovation Service Center in Whitewater, will be held at the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel in Appleton Oct. 1–2.

This will be the first time the event has been held in the New North area of Wisconsin. Also for the first time, a juried Inventors’ Showcase and Competition will be featured. Inventor and Entrepreneur Clubs in Wisconsin are working with WISC to promote the competition, which is open to anyone with an idea to share.

Keynote speakers are Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton on Thursday and Guerrilla Marketing author Al Lautenslager on Wednesday. During the conference, Fox Valley FIRST will present robotics programs. Other robotic platforms will also be highlighted.

More than 25 workshops will be provided by patent lawyers, CEOs, business development specialists, and marketing and engineering experts. Topics include assessing the market for new products, creating competitive advantages with the right intellectual property protection, designing and testing affordable prototypes, financing a start-up, promoting a new product, and targeting potential business partners. This year’s conference features a special track for manufacturers looking to embrace innovation.

To date conference sponsors include Von Briesen & Roper, Wisconsin Technology Council, Caliendo Promotions, Time Warner Business Cable, Ingenium Technologies, WE Energies, Center for Advanced Technology and Innovation, Wisconsin Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Trachte Building Systems.

WISC, founded in 1980 at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, is a national service that offers new product assessments, competitive intelligence searches, current and potential distributor and customer assessments, and licensing and strategic partner searches. It has investigated more than 8,000 product and market opportunities for individual inventors and companies, and has earned a national reputation for helping inventors, entrepreneurs, and companies make informed product and market decisions.

For more information or to register for “Ideas to Profits” visit http://academics.uww.edu/business/innovate/workshops.htm or contact WISC at (262) 472-1365 or outreach1@uww.edu.