By Thomas Henbeck, Brock Mackinnis, Will Kamps, & Elsie McElroy
WiSys postponed its’ UW-Green Bay’s Quick Pitch Competition on April 13th at 8:43 a.m. in a mass email from the Office of the Provost to the student population. The email claims the reason the Quick Pitch is no longer in production is due to “…multiple students being unable to finalize their participation in the event.”
Originally, the Quick Pitch Competition was set to be held in UW-Green Bay’s STEM building on April 13th, 2022, where students would have presented their research from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. The type of research presented was open to all fields, from humanities to economics, and could even include research that was conducted for a class.
The students would have had only three minutes to present their research in a “pitch” to a panel of judges. These judges, according to Kim Krueger, a Student Ambassador for WiSys, are often selected from “…organizations that they know who are into entrepreneurship, economics, business, bio-sciences…” For now canceled Quick Pitch, the announced judges were originally going to be Chancellor Michael Alexander, Vice-Chancellor Corey King, and Lisa Jossart, a Vice President of Partner Distribution and Community Investment.
Krueger claims that Quick Pitch would have offered a lot to the students participating in the event. “This is [not only] just a way to show off your research, but also gain skills in networking, speech, and speak to other authorities about your ideas,” Krueger stated.
Furthermore, winners of the event would have won cash prizes and the opportunity to move onto the WiSys’s Quick Pitch State Final, where approved winner students could compete against other university students from other WiSys-associated UW schools, such as UW Platteville and UW Stout.
Pictured above Hailey Johnson, the first-place winner at the UW Oshkosh event. Photo taken from WiSys Quick Pitch at UW Oshkosh.
To give an idea of what this event is like and what the projects can look like, the UW-Oshkosh had a similar event on March 2nd this year. According to an article from WiSys’ website, the first place was a chemistry project on targeting parasitic flatworms, and the second place covered the theory of communication in the realm of Allostery and Nanomechanical Communication. The people’s choice winner went to a historical project on educating people about the Hmong people in Wisconsin. First place won $450, and second place won $250, which was partially funded by the UW Oshkosh themselves. As one can see, a great deal of thought and effort is put into these diverse projects with the potential impact they could have on society.
All is not lost, however. Within the original cancellation email from the Office of the Provost, Roger Wareham, the Director, wrote, “[WiSys has] decided to postpone the event and, for the students still interested in the opportunity, we will explore other options for this year’s competition at UWGB.” On the off-chance that UW-Green Bay’s Quick Pitch does not get rescheduled for this year, it will return next year as it is an annual event.
WiSys is a patents company that is affiliated with different UW colleges. Logo taken from WiSys’s website.
On top of this, WiSys has several other opportunities for students in a variety of other events. Evelyn Olson, a WiSys Event and Program Coordinator, stated, “Beyond WiSys Quick Pitch, students should consider presenting their research or innovative project at the WiSys SPARK Symposium this summer. In addition to cash prizes, students can network with students and faculty from across the UW System. [Students] can learn more about the event at wisys.org/spark.”
Kim Krueger also elaborated on some of the services that WiSys provides to students in the UW system that collaborate with WiSys. “If you have an idea that you think you could market to a larger company or into the larger economy, we can help you to find grants, to find people to talk to help you with your research, and get your idea on a larger format rather than just staying here on campus.”
If one wants to learn more about WiSys, one can contact Kim Krueger with her email: kruekl@uwgb.edu or check out WiSys’ website.