Founders, investors, and operators from Wisconsin’s startup community — sharing what it actually takes, from first idea to exit.
CEO, HData
The day opens with a fireside conversation — candid, unscripted, no slides. Just the real story.
Hudson Hollister is co-founder and CEO of HData, an AI platform helping energy companies and agencies handle bureaucracy. He founded the Data Coalition and worked in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress. He teaches at Northwestern University and started RegTech Founders Capital.
Each workshop is led by someone who has lived the stage it covers. Full session details on the Program page.
Co-Founder & COO, Okkanti
Michael Szewczyk is a startup operator, product builder, and Co-Founder + COO of Okkanti, a Techstars-backed company helping maternity and infant care providers. He previously co-founded Factor, which raised $12M and was acquired. Having studied and taught design thinking, Michael has practical experience navigating the messy process of identifying real problems, testing solutions, and finding first customers.
Co-Founder & CEO, DataLily AI
Sumanth Karnati is co-founder and CEO of DataLily AI, which helps surgery centers find recruitable surgeons, fair payer rates, and better acquirers. He worked on system optimization at Tesla and published machine learning research at UW–Madison.
Co-Founder & CSO, DataLily AI
Elly Kruse is co-founder and CSO of DataLily AI, which helps surgery centers find recruitable surgeons, fair payer rates, and better acquirers. She worked at her family’s M&A firm and won GE HealthCare’s innovation challenge with her co-founder.
CEO, Dirac Labs
Sanket Deshpande is CEO of Dirac Labs, building quantum sensing and AI to provide scalable & reliable sensing and situational awareness solutions.
Frilly Founder & CEO
Jorge has led product design and marketing teams at various tech startups. His session walks through the techniques he’s developed crafting Frilly’s original experience with AI agents as design partners.
Senior Technology Consultant, Wisconsin CTC
Todd is technically trained in Chemistry and Science Education and is an expert in negotiating government grant funding for technical companies through the National SBIR/STTR programs. He provides guidance in grant writing to small companies as well as direction in Lean Startup methodologies critical to customer discovery and business hypothesis validation.
Technology Consultant, Wisconsin CTC
Rob Baranowski is a triple Badger, with degrees in History, Law, and Biotechnology from the University of Wisconsin. Rob has deep knowledge in the areas of SBIR/STTR and Lean Startup, as well as expertise in grant writing, management and legal topics. He enjoys sharing his knowledge with Wisconsin-based small businesses to increase their chances of success. Helping clients with problem solving is most meaningful to him on the job.
Outreach Specialist, Wisconsin CTC
Anya handles duties as a Department of Defense liaison for the CTC. Previously, she worked as an analyst and project manager for the Department of Military Affairs. Those who have collaborated with Anya describe working with her as “easy breezy.” She enjoys helping people, learning new things and solving problems — the most meaningful projects are the ones where she gets to do all three.
Plus: opening welcome from Bonnie Bachman, Director of the Technology Entrepreneurship Office (TEO).
Hear them live — one day, every stage of the journey.