The Lab is a launchpad for students building at the frontier of emerging technology. Bring an idea. Validate the problem. Build it. Test it against mentors, alumni, and industry partners who’ve done it before. Launch …
Sandra Bradley
BuildFest Registration is Now Open!
Bring your curiosity. Build something bold. Join fellow Badgers for a hands-on weekend of making, experimenting, and turning ideas into reality. One weekend. Multidisciplinary teams. Real momentum. BuildFest kicks off the Lab’s fall season: …
Join the Douglas D. Bradley Digital Health Challenge + Competition: Closing the Gap in Women’s Health
Challenge Launch: September 30, 2026 (Kickoff & Info Session, virtual) Submission Deadline: April 5, 2027 Subscribe to the Digital Health Challenge interest list to be notified of events, mentor opportunities, and when the submission window …
Build Night is back – first one of the semester, Thursday 9/24
Co-hosted with Transcend, this week’s Build Night features a hands-on session with Xabier Bisabarros-Hudoc on what vibe coding actually is and how to do it well — useful whether you’ve never written a line of …
From BuildFest to Demo Night: Join the Four-Week Sprint
On Wednesday, September 30, the Tech Exploration Lab is kicking off its fall Four-Week Sprint: extra structure, mentorship, and momentum for students who want to take an idea further. Whether you’re coming straight off a …
End of Summer Celebration Recap
On August 17, the UW Tech Exploration Lab and the Wisconsin Entrepreneurship Hub co-hosted an End of Summer Celebration at 1403 University Ave, part of ForwardFest 2026. The evening brought together students, founders, industry professionals, …
Welcome Tom Yen, Ph.D., as the Lab’s new Associate Director, Emerging Technologies & Innovation Programs
The Tech Exploration Lab is thrilled to welcome Tom Yen, Ph.D., as the Lab’s new Associate Director, Emerging Technologies & Innovation Programs! Tom has spent over 30 years leading human-centered product development for major medical technology …
Join us at the Tech Exploration Lab this Fall
Applications for our fall programs open in late August across three tracks: Venture Pathway, Industry Innovation, and Innovation Translation. But here is the important part. You don’t need to be in a formal program to …
Spatial Intelligence Ideathon Recap
On Saturday, July 18, the UW Tech Exploration Lab hosted its first Spatial Intelligence Ideathon — a one-day student pitch competition built around two real technologies: SGA-AR, a spatially grounded AI framework developed by Professor …
Spatial Intelligence Ideathon | Student Pitch Competition
Saturday, July 18 | 1403 University Ave, 2nd Floor | UW–Madison Students What happens when you hand students a patented university technology and tell them to find a problem worth solving? That’s the Spatial Intelligence …