Global Midwest Alliance
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Driving Innovation and Growth
Brinks Innovation Competition: Where Are They Now?
PROGRAM SPONSORED BY:
SPEAKER BIOS
DAVE BECKER, Vice President of Manufacturing and Operations for Catacel, has more than 24 years’ experience in the development of metal substrates for catalytic conversion, fuel processing, heat exchange and associated processing and manufacturing methods. He has 15 years of operations management in that field and was instrumental in developing and implementing manufacturing process, methods and business systems employed by Camet, W.R. Grace and Engelhard Corp. He has held key administrative positions including production manager; engineering manager; project manager; environment, health and safety coordinator; and IT/IS coordinator.
ALEX TANG leverages his commercialization and venture capital experiences to accelerate technology driven opportunities. Prior to co-founding Invention Bridge, Mr. Tang was the Director of Finance and Operations for the University of Chicago's Global Initiative Project with a focus on China and India. He brings private equity experience from McNally Capital and MVC Capital. Mr. Tang also assisted AVAC LLC to recruit and manage sector experts and MBA apprentices for the US Department of Energy EIR2 at Argonne National Laboratory. Prior to business school, Mr. Tang was a Senior Manager at STAX Inc., a consulting firm where he led due diligence for private equity and venture capital firms across a variety of technical and industrial sectors. While pursuing his MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, he became an IT/Cleantech Kauffman Fellows Finalist. Mr. Tang began his career at Open Prairie Ventures, an early stage SBIC venture capital fund that specializes in developing spinout ventures from leading Midwest university research institutions such as Tomotherapy (IPO 2007) from the University of Wisconsin Madison and Infoblox (IPO 2012) from the University of Illinois Chicago. Mr. Tang earned an MS and BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
ALLEN J. DINES is Assistant Director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of Corporate Relations (OCR). Operating within the Office of the Chancellor, the Office of Corporate Relations assists the business community in assessing the diverse resources of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). As Assistant Director, he works principally with new ventures and private equity. He serves a Program Manager for OCR's enterpreneurship programs including its Startup Initiative and Wiscontrepreneur program (www.wiscontrepreneur.org) funded in part under the Kauffman Campuses Program of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. In 2002, Mr. Dines co-founded the Midwest Research University Network (MRUN), an alliance of 22 Midwest research institutions dedicated to regional cooperation in the commercialization of university research through new business creation. He currently serves as president of MRUN.
SPONSOR OF THE 2012 INNOVATION COMPETITION
A Program Celebrating Past Winners and Look Ahead to the 2012 Innovation Competition
