Forward Fest 2026

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9:00am CDT

Thursday August 20, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am CDT

Event Hall at Hydrate IV Bar @ 4707 Madison Yards Way, Madison, WI 53705, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

This hands-on LinkedIn workshop is warm, welcoming and fun. It walks attendees through the full ecosystem of building a powerful presence. Participants will learn how to optimize their profiles so they clearly communicate value, attract the right audience, and open doors—whether that’s landing a dream role, growing a business, or expanding influence.

The session moves beyond setup into momentum: covering content strategy, topic ideation, and practical tools to create engaging posts without burnout. It also dives into the art of community-building—because LinkedIn isn’t just a platform, it’s a relationship engine. Attendees will learn how to engage authentically, build trust, and turn connections into meaningful opportunities.

Hosted by LinkUp Madison

Event Organizers

Chantel Soumis

Sponsors

Hydrate IV Bar

Thursday August 20, 2026 9:00am - 11:00am CDT
Event Hall at Hydrate IV Bar 4707 Madison Yards Way, Madison, WI 53705, USA

Ticketed, In Person (LinkedIn Glow-Up)

Category Tech / Software
Interaction Type Workshop

11:00am CDT

Cup of Joe featuring Oscar Aguilar

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm CDT

Black Business HUB - WWBIC @ 2352 S Park St suite 226, Madison, WI, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

Join us for a special Cup of Joe conversation featuring Oscar Aguilar, founder of Novel Minds, a Wisconsin-based technology consulting firm focused on innovation, strategic leadership, and custom technology solutions. Oscar will share his entrepreneurial journey—from building a business around problem-solving and technology to helping organizations turn ideas into action. We'll explore the challenges, lessons learned, pivotal decisions, and opportunities that have shaped his path. As always, Cup of Joe is an authentic conversation between entrepreneurs—no presentations, no scripts, just real stories from the trenches.

Hosted by WWBIC

Event Organizers

Emily Schmitzer

Regional Director of WWBIC's South Central Office

Thursday August 20, 2026 11:00am - 12:00pm CDT
Black Business HUB - WWBIC 2352 S Park St suite 226, Madison, WI, USA

Free, In Person

Category Tech / Software, Business and Entrepreneurship
Interaction Type Conference, Social

12:00pm CDT

Overcoming Gender Bias by Adopting an Entrepreneurial Mindset

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm CDT

100state @ 17 South Fairchild Street fl 7, Madison, WI, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

As a woman with over 10 years of experience in the highly male-dominated engineering world, I wish to share insights that have helped me stay. This field is, at times, unwelcoming or even outright hostile. A key to my success has been developing business acumen, sometimes learned through entrepreneurial events including Forward Fest! Key topics:

• Why gender bias is so sticky in fields like engineering and law, and why we can't expect to solve this problem with more pipeline

• How to get past broken rungs in the corporate ladder by thinking of yourself as if you were a one-person business

• Develop your personal brand to bounce back from setbacks such as non-inclusive workspaces, gatekeepers, or reframe inappropriate attention.

Event Organizers

Lynn McMahon

Thursday August 20, 2026 12:00pm - 12:30pm CDT
100state 17 South Fairchild Street fl 7, Madison, WI, USA

Free, In Person

Category Social Good, Tech / Software, General
Interaction Type Conference

12:30pm CDT

Bridging Generations at Work: Leading Multigenerational Teams Through Technology & Change

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 12:30pm - 2:30pm CDT

Delta Beer Lab @ 167 E Badger Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53713, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

Today’s workforce is more diverse than ever before, with six generations working side by side, each bringing unique perspectives, experiences, and relationships with technology.  While this diversity creates incredible opportunities for innovation and growth, it also introduces real challenges, especially when organizations are implementing new tools, systems, or digital strategies.

Bridging Generations at Work is a dynamic, beginner-friendly session designed to help leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals successfully navigate generational differences while driving meaningful progress through technology.  This session will explore how communication styles, expectations, and comfort with technology vary across generations, and how these differences can either hinder or accelerate success.

Attendees will gain practical strategies for leading multigenerational teams, fostering collaboration, and implementing technology initiatives in a way that brings people together rather than creating friction.  We’ll also explore the power of mentorship (including reverse mentorship), inclusive leadership, and cross-generational collaboration as key drivers of innovation.

Whether you're leading a startup, scaling a business, or managing a growing team, this session will equip you with actionable tools to strengthen your workforce, improve adoption of new ideas, and unlock the full potential of your team.

Hosted by NaviCu

Event Organizers

Vanessa Costanzo

VP of Operations, NaviCu

Thursday August 20, 2026 12:30pm - 2:30pm CDT
Delta Beer Lab 167 E Badger Rd, Fitchburg, WI 53713, USA

Free, In Person

Category Tech / Software
Interaction Type Conference, Happy Hour

1:00pm CDT

A Missing Opportunity—Bringing Agentic AI to UW-Madison

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 1:00pm - 2:30pm CDT

Engineering Hall @ Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Dr, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

Check out our Website

Agentic AI UW is a new club founded just this April. The purpose of the club is that there's a missing opportunity on campus. There are a lot of engineering clubs on campus that focuses on a single project where a team of engineers work together. However, UW-Madison lacks that kind of project-based clubs for CS students. We're at a turning point in history where three things converge into one, the massive amount of GPUs for compute, the massive amount of image/text data on the internet, and the innovational Transformer architecture. With the help of the Large Language Model (LLM) and Vision Language Model (VLM), the possibilities of AI becomes tremendous. AI agents is able to use tools inside your browser and inside your OS to help you complete the most boring/redundant tasks. Come here to learn about how Agentic AI is catalyzing in UW-Madison and what this club has done over the summer and is planning to do starting in the Fall.

Hosted by Agentic AI UW

Event Organizers

Evan Liu

Thursday August 20, 2026 1:00pm - 2:30pm CDT
Engineering Hall Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Dr, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Free, In Person

Category Tech / Software, General
Interaction Type Conference

1:00pm CDT

Future of VC: Digital Assets & Policy

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 1:00pm - 4:00pm CDT

TBA @ Engineering Hall, 1415 Engineering Dr, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

The venture capital landscape is being reshaped by digital assets, tokenized equity, and an evolving regulatory environment — and Wisconsin's entrepreneurial ecosystem needs to be part that conversation. Future of VC: Digital Assets & Policy is a forward-looking forum bringing together founders, investors, and policy advocates to explore how emerging digital asset frameworks are transforming capital formation, fundraising strategy, and startup growth.

Attendees will hear from practitioners at the intersection of venture capital and blockchain policy — examining how legislation like federal stablecoin bills, SEC guidance, and state-level digital asset law affect the way startups raise and deploy capital. Whether you're a founder navigating your first raise, an investor evaluating on-chain opportunities, or a policy stakeholder shaping Wisconsin's innovation landscape, this event delivers the intelligence and connections you need to stay ahead.

Hosted by Awen, Wisconsin Blockchain Business Council

Event Organizers

Ian McCullough

Sponsors

Stand with Crypto

Thursday August 20, 2026 1:00pm - 4:00pm CDT
TBA

Free, In Person

Category Social Good, Tech / Software, General
Interaction Type Social

3:00pm CDT

Certified Organic in Wisconsin & New Wisconsin Online Organic Directories

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

Giant Jones Brewing @ 931 East Main Street Entrance on, S Brearly St Suite 9, Madison, WI 53703, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

Check out our Website

Understanding Certified Organic in Wisconsin

Wisconsin is a national leader in organic food production—but for many consumers the certified organic system still feels opaque. “Understanding Certified Organic in Wisconsin” is a practical, interactive session designed to demystify how organic really works in our state and to introduce new tools that make it easier than ever to find, buy, and support Wisconsin organic.

This event is for anyone who cares about the future of our food system: shoppers, chefs and retailers, distributors, institutional buyers, farmers (certified or transitioning), and food system professionals who want a clear, current picture of Wisconsin’s organic landscape. Together, we’ll walk through the key facts and structures that define certified organic in the United States and Wisconsin—how certification works, who the 1,623 certified organic operations are, where they’re located, and how they fit into the broader value chain. We’ll unpack what “certified organic” really means in practice for crops, livestock, and processed foods, and why local organic production is critical at a time when so much “organic” food on store shelves is imported and often less transparent.

A highlight of the event is the public unveiling of Wisconsin Organics’ new three-part online directory ecosystem: a unified, searchable directory of certified organic farms and handlers; an emerging consumer-facing brands and products directory that will catalog an estimated 3,000 Wisconsin organic products; and a farm and garden input supplies directory mapping key supply-chain businesses—from seed and soil amendments to equipment and organic feed. Built on meticulously collected and cleaned data, these HubSpot-based tools transform scattered information into an accessible, navigable map of Wisconsin’s organic sector.

Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of the USDA national organic standards, how certified organic works in Wisconsin, where the opportunities and bottlenecks are across the value chain, and how to use the new directories to source local organic products, strengthen short supply chains, and better align purchasing with their values.

The session will include a guided tour of the directories, have some local organic producers in attendance with their products, providetime for questions and live troubleshooting, and space for attendees to share what tools and information they most need next—helping shape the future of organic market transparency in Wisconsin.

Hosted by Wisconsin Organics and Giant Jones Brewery

Event Organizers

Noreen Mucha

Executive Director, Wisconsin Organics

Noreen Mucha is the Founder and Director of Wisconsin Organics-dedicated to building the digital and coordination infrastructure necessary for Wisconsin’s organic sector to thrive. With more than two decades of experience in global food systems and nutrition across 40+ countries... Read More →

Thursday August 20, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT
Giant Jones Brewing 931 East Main Street Entrance on, S Brearly St Suite 9, Madison, WI 53703, USA

Free, Virtual

Category Food, Tech / Software
Interaction Type Workshop

3:00pm CDT

VentureHome Pitch Day

LIMITED

Thursday August 20, 2026 3:00pm - 4:30pm CDT

TBA @ 931 East Main Street Entrance on, S Brearly St Suite 9, Madison, WI 53703, USA

Limited Capacity seats available

Ambitious founders have gone through the Level Up! Pre-seed Accelerator at a WiSys VentureHome location across Wisconsin. Whether you are an investor, a founder, or someone interested in entrepreneurship, this pitch day will provide a sneak peek at Wisconsin's emerging tech startups. The pitches will each be 6 minutes, followed by 4 minutes of questions from the audience. The event will be fast-paced, captivating, and open to anyone who would like to attend.

Hosted by WiSys VentureHome

Event Organizers