Mobile App Inventors to Pitch Innovations in Collaborative Contest

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) is partnering with the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee’s (UWM) App Brewery to conceptualize and bring to fruition new, innovative apps that will enhance and highlight medical research and clinical care – and some educational fun along the way.

Imagine an app that could serve as a microscope… help collaborate home doctor visits… or a game you could play in which you virtually wage battles in the body’s immune system.

Those are just a few of the 22 new apps being pitched at the inaugural Mobile App Challenge on Tuesday, March 18 in the Alumni Center at the MCW campus.

During the event, which begins at 9:00 A.M., each finalist will have a brief opportunity to present their idea, and take a few questions from judges. After all 22 proposals have been pitched, a team of judges, including representatives from MCW, UWM, Creative Alliance, and Start-Up Milwaukee will select the top three or four winning proposals.

Students at the UWM Mobile Innovation Lab, also known as “The App Brewery,” will develop the apps in collaboration with the teams behind the creative ideas.

The Mobile App Challenge was announced by leadership at both institutions last November. More than 80 proposals were submitted.

“We are thrilled at the creativity and innovation demonstrated by our students, faculty and staff in these proposals, all of which will enhance medical research or the health of our community in some way, and we look forward to this collaboration with UWM. This collaboration with the App Brewery is a shining example of the value of academic partnerships in our community,” said Joseph E. Kerschner, MD, executive vice president of MCW and dean of its medical school.

“Since the inception of the App Brewery, we’ve been finding there is no shortage of ideas, and our ability to work in close collaboration with MCW provides our students with unique challenges to enhance their education and provide a service not only to other institutions but to the health of Wisconsin,” said Michael Hostad, the UWM director of web and mobile strategy, and a key player in the collaboration.

For this project, the App Brewery will work out of its satellite location located in UWM’s new Innovation Campus on Watertown Plank Road.

The pitch event begins at 9:00 A.M. March 18, and is open to media and to the general public. The MCW campus is located at 8701 Watertown Plank Road. Visitor parking is located on 87th street directly across from the main campus entrance.