CHAMPAIGN — Alex Bratton has founded 10 technology companies, and he's intent on bringing some of them to Champaign-Urbana.

Bratton, a University of Illinois alumnus who describes himself as "half geek, half entre- preneur," says he's eager to esta- blish more ties with campus.

Last week, one of his companies, Lisle-based Lextech Global Services, announced it would open an office in the EnterpriseWorks building in the UI Research Park.

Initially, it will employ a team of six, and Bratton said he hopes to add more teams down the road.

The initial team will create mobile applications for businesses and other enterprises. Using those applications, clients could summon a wealth of information on smartphones and other mobile devices.

For instance, salespeople for an automotive retailer could show customers vehicles available at hundreds of dealerships using an iPad application.

Part of the motivation for Lextech setting up shop in Champaign was to acquaint UI students with mobile technology and where it's going, said Bratton, 40, of Woodridge.

"Right now, a big problem in the mobile industry is there are not enough people capable of developing high-quality mobile software," he said. "I want to help the next generation."

Bratton said he expects the Champaign operation to be in place by the end of September. The team will be made up of students and full-time employees.

Those interested in the jobs should have "a passion for technology and the ability to learn quickly and be productive with it," he said.

Experience with the Java programming language would be "extremely helpful," he added.

Building mobile applications is "very different from building Web apps," he said.

Mobile apps need to be "bulletproofed" because connectivity can go up and down and users can get calls while using the app, he noted.

Bratton, who received a bachelor's degree in computer engineering from the UI in 1993, said he founded his first company — a software consulting business — at age 14.

He founded another company, Web RPG, for the role-playing game community in 1996 and sold it three years later.

Lextech Global Services, formed in 2001, focuses on building mobile applications for enterprise.

A sister company, Lextech Labs, delivers real-time video to people making critical decisions in the field.

Law-enforcement officers and first responders are among those who can benefit from the capability, Bratton said.

The genesis of Lextech Labs' mission dates back to Bratton's work for a defense contractor on a "high-end" video surveillance system. His job was to help non-technical people understand how to use it.

It was a question of making advanced technology "simple," he said.

Often, those people were working from command centers, and Bratton wondered how the technology could be made mobile.

When Apple launched the iPhone, Bratton decided it was time for Lextech Labs to move to the mobile platform.

Bratton said security and law-enforcement officials have conventionally used video "to record what happened and to go back, after the fact, to look at it." But with real-time capabilities, there's "a shift to people wanting to use it right now."

Lextech Global Services employs about 30, and Lextech Labs about 10, most of them based in Lisle, he said. Bratton remains the majority shareholder in both companies.

Bratton said his family have deep roots in Illinois. While many of his UI classmates went to the West Coast, he stayed here and "tried to help grow the Illinois tech community."