Mary Bunzel, a former manager and director at Intel and IBM, has been named executive director of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Connected Systems Institute, a learning and research hub focused on the industrial internet of things (IIoT).
At Intel and IBM, Bunzel managed global teams responsible for advancing the adoption of IIoT. At Intel, she began a 170-member manufacturing IIoT council and managed a portfolio of more than $100 million.
Microsoft, Milwaukee-based companies Rockwell Automation and A.O. Smith, along with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and others, have teamed with UW-Milwaukee to develop the Connected Systems Institute. The goal is to develop a workforce for the internet connected-systems environment, and to train existing company leaders on the connected systems industry.
Last year, Microsoft gifted $1.5 million to the Connected Systems Institute. The gift included $1.25 million in cash and the remaining in hardware and software costs for using Microsoft Azure, the company's cloud computing service.
In 2017, Rockwell gifted $1.7 million to UWM to help launch the institute.
The Connected Systems Institute is a roughly 12,000-square-foot space that includes maker spaces, classrooms and networking labs.
