Check out these awesome events taking place across Charlottesville. #Blog #CommunityNewsletter #featured #News

As we ramp up for fall, we're celebrating Tom Tom alums committed to inclusive innovation! #Blog #featured #News #SpeakerNewsletter

Tom Tom alumni news is heating up from San Francisco to Southwest Virginia! #Blog #featured #News #SpeakerNewsletter

Midsummer Dreams Edition Welcome to our biweekly newsletter, where we spotlight Tom Tom alums near and far. Read about speakers honing  in on automated vehicles, the municipal broadband boom, sports-centered philanthropy, and more. As always, send us relevant tidbits at speaker@tomtomfest.com! Speaker Spotlights “Since that study was released, [a record number of] African American women have been elected as District Attorneys in major metropolitan cities like Orlando, St. Lou

The Tom Tom Speaker Newsletter: Star-Spangled Edition! This Fourth of July week, we bring you a wide variety of speaker scoop, with Tom Tom alums breaking down barriers in the beauty world, pushing for digital justice on the Senate floor, and projecting the labor landscape of the future. We hope you have a safe and happy Independence Day! Speaker Spotlights At 25, Nancy Twine was the youngest African-American to launch a line for Sephora. Now, her company Briogeo is the megar

What’s Going On With Tom Tom Speakers This Summer? In the latest edition of our newsletter, we highlight news about chatbots, workforce development, meat alternatives, and more from speakers across the country. As always, drop us a line if you have bites to share via speaker@tomtomfest.com! Speaker Spotlights “There’s no such thing as a neutral design. Every design impacts people,” the 2017 Tom Tom speaker said. “So, in my projects, I’m asking: how am I holding myself, my cli

“We must hold universities and public institutions accountable, not only for the fact that the socioeconomic divide should not be there, but that we—institutions of higher learning—actually created it, maintain it, and sustain it.” At Tom Tom 2019, University of Virginia Law Professor, UVA Equity Initiative cofounder, public health leader, and author Dayna Matthew rocked our Civic Innovation Conference with a powerful kickoff presentation about the urgency of closing divides

In our second speaker news dispatch, we celebrate alumni news from Chattanooga to New York City. #Blog #featured #News #SpeakerNewsletter

This regular email will keep you up to date on your fellow Tom Tom stars from across the country! #Blog #featured #News #SpeakerNewsletter

Special thanks to The Community Ideas Stations and WVCE PBS! “The IPCC [U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] Report really put the fear of God in everyone, because it said we have twelve years, until 2030, to get our acts together…the only two countries who are meeting their goals are Morocco and Gambia.” Katherine Hamilton, chair and co-founder of 38 North Solutions, a DC-based public policy firm focused on clean energy innovation, and host of the industry-leading

Special thanks to The Community Ideas Stations and WVCE PBS! “While we all are projecting a future and normalizing who we are, human beings are compelled by difference and outliers. So if we quit highlighting the outliers, where’s our collective progress coming from?” Vida Williams, Data Solutions Lead at Singlestone Consulting and the VCU DaVinci Center’s first ever “Innovator In Residence,” delivered a powerful call to action for our audience of data scientists and engaged

Special thanks to The Community Ideas Stations and WVCE PBS! “As an organization, we have learned that you need to interconnect a lot of parts of a local ecosystem to make these kinds of things successful.” Noah Horowitz, Director Americas for Art Basel since 2015, joined moderator Carl Swanson of New York Magazine on stage at the Jefferson Theater on April 10, 2019 for a conversation about how the internationally-recognized art fair platform has expanded to Hong Kong and Bue

Special thanks to The Community Ideas Stations and WVCE PBS! “Tonight’s conversation is about how a movement, a community, and an industry can look at the successes they have had and realize that they can and must do better.” – John Hudak, Brookings Institution Five of the country’s top thought-leaders in cannabis entrepreneurship and policy reform gathered at the Paramount Theater on April 10, 2019 for an invigorating conversation about the opportunities and challenges the i

“All children, no matter their country of origin, deserve to feel safe in their schools, their streets, and their homes.” At Tom Tom 2019, Jaclyn Corin described the experience of transforming tragedy into social action. A student from Parkland, Florida, Corin survived a mass shooting that killed 17 of her classmates and teachers. Immediately, she—and the entire Parkland community—was tasked with defining a new normal. Less than a week after the shooting, Corin mobilized 100

Special thanks to The Community Ideas Stations and WVCE PBS! John Dickerson (CBS This Morning), Emily Bazelon (New York Times Magazine), David Plotz (Atlas Obscura), and special guest Jamelle Bouie (The New York Times) delivered their unique brand of whip-smart political commentary to a packed house at the Paramount Theater on April 12, 2019. The roundtable volleyed thoughts and theories on the field of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, the crisis of current U.S. immig

Special thanks to The Community Ideas Stations and WVCE PBS! Vanessa German, a visual and performance artist and founder of ARThouse and Love Front Porch, called Tom Tom’s Creative Ecosystems Conference to action at the Jefferson Theater on April 11, 2019. Through photographs of her neighborhood and her work, candid personal moments, and stunning performance, the Don Tyson Prize-winning German introduced her journey as a citizen artist, and explored her mantra: ‘I believe in

Artist in Residence Federico Cuatlacuatl to reveal Sun Tribe Solar mural, “Senyelistli,” at special launch party Join Tom Tom, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, Charlottesville Mural Project, and Sun Tribe Solar in celebrating the newest contribution to Charlottesville’s public art scene! For the second year running, Tom Tom and The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative have joined forces to welcome an Artist in Residence to Charlottesville. This creative figure engages wi

JAUNT bus design features work by Staunton-based artist, Craig Snodgrass The Tom Tom Festival, Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT), and JAUNT are proud to announce this year’s second winning design for the fifth annual City Art Bus competition: Craig Snodgrass’ “Scenic Snodbots.” Following a ceremony at Charlottesville’s Downtown Transit Station on March 27, the robot-covered JAUNT bus hit the road and joined a colorful CAT bus designed by Egypt. Snodgrass is a Staunton-based

Competition challenges undergraduate students from across Virginia to develop innovative solutions to issues facing the commonwealth and the nation. It’s time to celebrate student-driven entrepreneurship! Tom Tom and American Evolution are proud to announce their celebrity judge and student semifinalist selections for the American Evolution Innovators Cup competition. The annual contest, which showcases Virginia’s academic excellence, is set to go down on Friday, April 12 as

Top ten contestants named, set to compete in eighth annual competition Thursday, April 11 at 5:30PM Happy Hour | 6:30PM Pitches The Jefferson Theater | Free Admission For the eighth year running, ten local entrepreneurs will have three minutes each to share their pitch with a live audience at Crowdfunded Pitch Night. These local dreamers—recently named as finalists—will vie to inspire the crowd and ultimately seize the top prizes that will help launch their business or projec