The Forward Festival

Spotted! We cheered for the gener8tor Madison 2024 cohort at the Madison Startup Showcase during the The Forward Festival. The proud graduates are Madison-based Cubby, Toronto-based Healthy Cow, Madison-based Plumb Pharmaceuticals, Inc., U.S.-based TechComb, Madison-based Technova Industries and Indianapolis-based Transfur. Did we spot you there? 

What a gift being together, learning, growing, laughing...all at The Forward Festival! A fabulous week to energize any entrepreneur at any stage of their journey!

Attended The Forward Festival and DevFest WI in Madison this week. The sessions were packed with insights and innovations that were aimed to educate and help us revaluate and redefine our approach to our work and tech. It was also a great way to build community and explore this awesome town. Here’s a quick rundown of my takeaways so far: • Problem-Solving Strategies: Insights from the session led by Vanessa Costanzo from NaviCu emphasized the importance of consistent client communication to ensure successful project management by implementing a tailored development process • Araceli E. guided us on a Curandera writing session that was provided us space to introspect and redirect some feeling and energies that we may have been internalizing. This session really helped shape how I'm going to show up in the world. • Shawn Spartz led interactive an art therapy exercise and explanations of the mechanisms and our minds had me very much engaged. As someone who has spent time working and living at a meditation center, it was refreshing to have someone else from the tech sphere reinforce these intersections. • Heather von Oesen Dean shed some light onto leadership types. Thank you for transforming the way I think about them. Through it, I was able to analyze on some strengths and weaknesses with my own leadership patterns. Overall, Forward Fest and DevFest WI was a treasure trove of knowledge, and I’m excited to integrate these learnings into my work. P.S. it has been a blast meeting some of the wonderful people that exist here in Madison. Not gonna tag you all :)

🥳 We would like to say a huge thank you to The Forward Festival participants who joined us for Books & Breakfast! Our staff enjoyed sharing our programming, giving you a tour of the Book Center, and giving you an inside look at our Reading Buses! We loved seeing old friends and making new ones. 💛 📚 Thank you Madison Sourdough & Bloom Bake Shop for donating delicious food for our guests. #literacymatters #newbookfeeling #madisonwi #freebooksforkids

Nothing but smiles with Yahara Software at the The Forward Festival Women in Tech Job Fair! I had an absolute blast with Dayna May Brady, Rae Slager, Katherine Ray, and Jim Smaciarz. It was incredible to talk to so many passionate women looking to do great things 💚

🎉✨ A huge THANK YOU to all our incredible customers and the amazing The Forward Festival community for making the Fine Post Forward Fest Fête a spectacular success! Your energy, enthusiasm, and support made the event truly unforgettable. We also want to extend a heartfelt shoutout to our dedicated FPC team members who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring this vision to life. Your hard work and passion were evident in every detail, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Here’s to celebrating together and looking forward to many more memorable moments ahead! 🙌💫 #FinePostForwardFest #ForwardFest #Community #Gratitude

Speaking to a room full of adults rather than my usual audience (kids) can be unnerving! Fortunately I had a chance to talk about a topic I am incredibly passionate about- creativity and the importance of fostering creativity from an early age. Talking points: 💪Creativity is a muscle that requires regular “workouts” in order to build confidence 🎨Try out different creative pursuits to find what speaks to you 📓Starting small with a few minutes a day or simply beginning a visual journaling practice could be a great start 🎻Life skills gained through creative pursuits include greater empathy, stronger communication skills, confidence, a clearer sense of self, and (my favorite) a higher frustration tolerance. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this The Forward Festival event and to Ryann Foelker for sharing her knowledge and insights on the importance of human creativity!

Smaller, localized versions of #AIlanguage models could help address emerging concerns around #dataprivacy and the cost of the #technology. That’s one insight from Darren Oberst, CEO of Ai BLOKS and AI framework platform LLMWare (by Ai Bloks), who spoke this week as part of The Forward Festival in Madison. He was hosted by the #MadAI group, a community of #AI professionals in the Madison area. While interest in large #languagemodels such as #ChatGPT has only risen as the technology matures, Oberst noted #tech industry leaders such as Sam Altman and Elon Musk have discussed the risk of AI developing too quickly. Meanwhile, companies have also been raising concerns around their sensitive data being exposed through the use of AI, he said. “All is not rosy in #generativeAI land, there are some real storm clouds on the horizon,” Oberst said. “And we actually believe that small language models have a very important role to play as part of the solution to address many of those concerns.” Read more at https://lnkd.in/gXCCVnDJ

Spotted! We cheered for the gener8tor Madison 2024 cohort at the Madison Startup Showcase during the The Forward Festival. The proud graduates are Madison-based Cubby, Toronto-based Healthy Cow, Madison-based Plumb Pharmaceuticals, Inc., U.S.-based TechComb, Madison-based Technova Industries and Indianapolis-based Transfur. Did we spot you there? 

2024 The Forward Festival - so many opportunities to learn and connect over 5 days. My Tuesday included: Founder Panel: Relationships and Entrepreneurship Pressure Chamber: 6 strong funding pitches Truly something for every entrepreneur. #forwardfest #entrepreneur #berndtcpa