This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with returning guest Laura Strong, board member for Forward Fest and founder and CEO of Valency Fund.
The show previews the upcoming event series, which organizers tout as the state’s largest celebration of technology and entrepreneurship.
It’s being held Aug. 18-22 in Madison, with more than 60 events taking place across the city that week.
“It’s really driven by entrepreneurs, but it’s really inclusive of everyone in the community, even people that are just curious about entrepreneurship and maybe don’t have any plans to be entrepreneurs themselves,” she said. “We as the festival provide an umbrella that allows people to plan their events during this week … every year we’re excited to see what people have come up with.”
This year’s Forward Fest will have more individual events than ever before, and more than two-thirds of those are new to the festival, Strong notes.
Along with the longstanding Badger Startup Summit, Forward Fest features the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s Pressure Chamber pitch competition, seminars on growing a business and other topics, social gatherings, as well as numerous programs focused on AI, cybersecurity and much more.
“There are some more creative, innovator-type events,” she said. “So one of those that I’m particularly interested in is exploring tech-driven music innovation … there’s certainly a lot of AI out there, you can’t get away from it these days, which I think is not a bad thing.”
Strong says the event topics being explored this year reflect “the grassroots interest in innovation” and entrepreneurship happening in Wisconsin. She’s also encouraging attendees to consider what they would like to see highlighted in future events.
“This is a pretty collaborative environment, and so we start, I would say probably in February of every year, talking to folks that might be interested in planning events,” she said. “Trying to get them on the right path to not only think about it, but end up planning and hosting an event.”
See the calendar of events and register for Forward Fest here.
Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison:
