Milwaukee 7 Water Summit: A cluster forming

The Milwaukee 7 (M7) WIRED is helping to support the developmentof a new water cluster in Southeast Wisconsin. The focus of the effort is on developing the talent pipline and innovation networks needed to expand fresh water technologies.

This summit follows a similar event held last year. In the past year, the M7 team has developed a good mapping of regional assets.

With this baseline report in hand, the M7 Water Council is working to align the regional freshwater research community and water-related industries to establish the Milwaukee Region as the global capital for freshwater research, economic development and education

To help put the Milwaukee region at the forefront, the M7 Water Council created three key committees:

• The Research/Emerging Technologies Committee will identify opportunities for development and resources that exist, and find SBIR and other funding sources to help research projects and generate the economic development benefits coming from it. They will work to establish networks and contacts between academic and research facilities and water-related businesses, and are discussing better ways to use science and technology to address regional, national and international water issues.
• The Marketing/Branding Committee will identify the “rock stars” of the water-related businesses, education and research resources in the region.  They will research what and how the Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle got started and how it can apply to establishing our region as the Global Freshwater Capital.
• The Education/Outreach Committee will help connect research and academics with water-related companies to fuse knowledge and talent in a seamless system designed to boost our ability to get things devised, developed, produced and sold from the minds of talented employees to the markets around the world in need of water-related goods and services.  The Education and Outreach Committee will identify the existing programs available for education and outreach in the region to make full use of them, and to develop additional, customized programs only if deemed necessary.