October is the busiest month on the Wisconsin tech calendar, and it isn't close.
The Wisconsin Tech Month calendar lists 60 events this year. The Startup Wisconsin events calendar has 60 October events too, WTM and otherwise. Pitch nights, hackathons, investor summits, coworking sessions, and a day at the State Capitol.
You don't need to go to all of them. You probably need three or four, picked on purpose.
What is Wisconsin Tech Month?
Wisconsin Tech Month is a statewide, month-long run of tech events every October. Milky Way Tech Hub launched it in 2021, and it's led by founder and CEO Nadiyah Johnson.
I talked with Nadiyah for an upcoming episode of the Startup Wisconsin Podcast, and the origin of WTM has a Startup Wisconsin thread running through it. Before Milky Way, she worked with Matt Cordio on Startup Milwaukee Week, where they partnered on a diversity track.
"That eventually inspired the work that we do with Wisconsin Tech Month," she told me.
When she started pitching sponsors on a statewide month, the reaction wasn't exactly encouragement. At least once a day, someone asked whether she had checked with Matt Cordio first.
I didn't ask anybody. I just did what I needed to do. And sometimes if you just go for it, you're going to find your people who can support.
Five years later, those people fill a month.
How is October organized?
WTM splits October into four themed weeks. Each one leans toward a different crowd, which makes it easier to find your week before you find your events.
The month opens October 1 with the WI Tech Month Kick Off at the Milwaukee Public Market at 9 AM, then a happy hour at Saint Kate that evening. If you only make one WTM event, the kickoff is the easiest way to meet a lot of the community at once.
A week later, on October 8, the Wisconsin Tech Advocacy Day brings tech leaders and founders to the State Capitol in Madison to talk with policymakers about innovation, talent, infrastructure, and investment. If you've ever wanted to tell a legislator what building a company here is actually like, go.
Where should you go if you're raising money?
October stacks up a lot of investor time in a short window. Some of it is part of WTM, and some of it just happens to land the same month.
Launch Wisconsin (Oct 6). The Wisconsin Technology Council's rebranded Early Stage Symposium. Breakouts, the Elevator Pitch Olympics, investor intros, and the Launch Wisconsin pitch finals.
+Venture North (Oct 8). NVNG's gathering on venture capital and Midwest industry in Milwaukee, with a community happy hour at Pilot Project Brewing the night before.
Founder Factory pitch night (Oct 14). Eleven university technologies from Marquette, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Versiti, and UWM, each looking for a founder to build a company around it.
+Venture Health and the Wisconsin Biohealth Summit (Oct 21 and 22). The biohealth side of the month, from NVNG and BioForward Wisconsin.
Where should you go if you're building?
DEV Week is the obvious answer, but good building rooms show up all month.
You Have a Product Idea, Now What? (Oct 14). The UWM Prototyping Center walks through development and production pathways for turning an idea into a real product. Useful if you're building anything physical.
Emerging in Technology Summit (Oct 13). Milky Way Tech Hub's signature WTM summit, in Kenosha this year, covering AI, cybersecurity, and workforce development.
Hackathons. HackGB runs October 17 and 18 at UW-Green Bay for college students, and Hackreation closes out the month on October 31 at Penrod in downtown Milwaukee.
AI Code Jam (Oct 3). Not a WTM event, but worth the drive to Madison. Six hours of building with AI tools alongside other people doing the same thing.
Where should you go if you just want to find your people?
Sometimes you're not raising or shipping. You're just tired of building alone.
Coworking with Sit By Me. Weekly drop-in sessions at Fruition, Wantable Cafe, and Haven Cafe in Milwaukee. Low stakes, bring a laptop, meet whoever sits down next to you.
Female Founders Meetup (Oct 19). A meetup for women building startups in and around Green Bay, at The Nest Cowork + Club.
Founder/Fest (Oct 21). The Midwest Founders Community gathering at Penrod. No panels, no pitches, just founder stories and time with people who get it.
Women Leading in the AI Era (Oct 20). A virtual conversation from Women in Data featuring Nadiyah. An easy one to join from anywhere in the state.
Isn't Wisconsin Tech Month mostly a Milwaukee thing?
Mostly, yes. Most of the 60 WTM listings are in the Milwaukee area, with a handful in Kenosha, Madison, Green Bay, Racine, and Sheboygan Falls.
That's not a knock on WTM. It's a reflection of who has raised a hand to host so far. Nadiyah calls the people who show up to do this work "the coalition of the willing," and she was clear that no single organization can carry an ecosystem alone.
The WTM site includes a form to submit an event. If your city is thin on the calendar this year, that's an open invitation for next year.
How do you get involved beyond showing up?
Going to events is the start. Nadiyah's ask goes a step further.
"We have active committees right now specific to Wisconsin Tech Month," she told me. Events, sponsorship, and marketing are all looking for help. Her advice for anyone curious: "Get your hands dirty."
If a committee is more than you can take on, follow Milky Way Tech Hub on LinkedIn and join their newsletter. Nadiyah calls it the best way to learn what the whole ecosystem has to offer, not just Milky Way's own programs.
She also sees pointing people elsewhere as part of the job:
Part of what it means to be a hub is to be able to provide resources, and that sometimes means navigational capital.
Pointing people toward the accelerator, mastermind, or meetup that fits them, even when it belongs to someone else. That's the same reason we keep the Startup Wisconsin events calendar running. You never know which door someone will walk through first.
Where do you start?
Open the calendar. Pick one event for your company, one for your network, and one that's a little outside your lane.
Then go, and bring someone with you.
My full conversation with Nadiyah, including how Milky Way went from a meetup in the basement of the Sherman Phoenix to reaching about 10,000 people a month, is coming soon to the Startup Wisconsin Podcast.
See you in October.
