Computer programmers and engineers, meet foodies and hopeful music-industry innovators. No longer limited to high-tech or biotech topics, this year's Forward Festival, taking place Aug. 21-28 in and around Madison, has evolved to make room for the growing cuisine and music startup movements.
To reflect this shift, organizers Matt Younkle, Nathan Lustig and Bryan Chan dropped "Technology" from the festival's name. But old habits die hard. "I need to set up a jar and put a quarter in every time I say 'Forward Technology Festival,'" Chan says when asked about the slight rebrand.
He calls it a natural evolution for the five-year-old "celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship." "Madison is a great place to start businesses of all kinds," he says, highlighting the success of Madison-based MobCraft, the self-described "world's first completely crowd-sourced brewery."
Food entrepreneurs hoping to be the next MobCraft, Potter's Crackers or Yumbutter will learn how to launch a business at the festival's Edible Startup Summit, held at the UW Memorial Union on Aug. 25. Afterwards, they'll head to commercial kitchen space FEED Kitchens on North Sherman Avenue for snacks and cocktails.
As in years past, Chan says, the festival will focus on female entrepreneurs. It's the subject of the keynote address that will be given by former Food Network executive Erica Gruen at the Badger Startup Summit on Aug. 26. The Summit is an all-day event held at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery that brings together Wisconsin-grown entrepreneurs. Women-led businesses will take center stage again at the Doyenne Group's 5x5x5 Breakfast at the Madison Club, where five of them will vie for a $5,000 seed grant.
Since the festival's founding in 2010, organizers have hoped to give it a musical element as well. Still, that's not an attempt to turn it into Austin's renowned SXSW Festival. "Certainly, the scale and scope of SXSW provides some inspiration as to what's possible, but what works for Austin won't necessarily work for Madison," says Matt Younkle. "The Forward Fest structure is very open; anyone can host an event, and the Festival will help promote it." To that end, on this year's itinerary is a stop at the free and open to the public Live on King Street concert and pre-show happy hour on Aug. 22.
Like LOKS, many of the festival's events cost nothing and accept walk-ins or day-of registration. One example is Barcamp Unplugged, an "unconference" taking place outdoors in Black Earth on Aug. 23. It's a no-sales-pitches-allowed, nature-lover's version of Barcamp, an open-format meeting where attendees are the presenters and decide what to discuss.
But the festival's main event, as always, is the daylong conference, held this year at Monona Terrace on Aug. 27. Jignesh Patel, a UW-Madison professor who last summer sold his company to Twitter, will deliver the keynote speech. A $75 ticket (or $100 door-rate ticket, space permitting) gets you into all conference seminars, panels and a startup showcase, and includes meals and beverage tickets.
