top of page
Search

2019 Festival Recap

Take a look back at the 8th Annual Tom Tom Summit and Festival.

Jaclyn Corin, a Parkland student and cofounder of March for Our Lives, inspired more than 700 high school students as the keynote speaker at Tom Tom’s Youth Innovation Conference. Many thanks for UVA’s Curry School of Education and Human Development, the Manning Family Foundation, and ReinventED Lab for making this great day possible.



Virginia Tech Sweeps the Innovators Cup. More than 40 teams from 17 Virginia colleges and universities spent Friday, April 12 pitching innovative ideas as part of the American Evolution Innovators Cup. A big congrats to Virginia Tech, which swept both the Social Impact Challenge (Reinventing High School) and the Commonwealth Challenge (Virginia’s Most Innovative Startups). Pictured here: Teams Rendyr and Redshift Education, Inc.



Dance! Dance! Silent Revolution? On Tom Tom Friday, the Jefferson Theater was lights-out as hundreds of revelers tuned out the world, cranked up their headsets, and let loose at our Silent Disco.



Superstar citizen artist Vanessa German rocked our Creative Ecosystems Conference-goers to the core with her powerful keynote performance at the Jefferson Theater. Thanks to the FUNd @ CACF and IX Art Park for making this day possible.



Design pioneer Pamela Abalu (center), serial entrepreneur Chinedu Echeruo (right), and violinist Andrei Matorin enlightened the crowd at the Jefferson Theater with their groundbreaking vision of infusing work with love. Special thanks to founding sponsor American Evolution as well as conference cohosts The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and UVA’s Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business for making our Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Conference possible.



Noah Horowitz, Director of Art Basel Americas, captivated the Jefferson Theater through his keynote conversation about arts infrastructure in cities with New York Magazine editor at large Carl Swanson.



UVA Law Professor Dayna Matthew brought the house down as the kickoff speaker at our Civic Innovation Conference, where she talked about the importance of confounding the data as we strive to make our cities more equitable.



The Slate Political Gabfest—featuring hosts David Plotz (Atlas Obscura), Emily Bazelon (The New York Times Magazine), and hometown hero John Dickerson (CBS This Morning), plus special guest Jamelle Bouie (The New York Times)—packed the Paramount Theater with a rapid-fire headlining performance about the week’s current events. Thanks to UVA’s College of Arts & Sciences for supporting the show!



Kicking off our Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Conference, Rise of the Rest Seed Fund partner David Hall engaged in an entertaining as informative keynote conversation with Entrepreneur magazine editor in chief Jason Feifer about venture capital outside Silicon Valley. Thanks to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and UVA’s Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business at UVA for making this day possible!



Bay Area soul, psych-rock, and R&B band Con Brio rocked Market Street Park at Tom Tom’s annual Block Party on Friday night.



Keynote speaker Vida Williams of Singlestone and VCU warmed up Tom Tom’s Applied Machine Learning Conference with her talk about bias in the practice of data. Many thanks to S&P Global and UVA’s Data Science Institute for making this day possible!



New York-based Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds brought their explosive brand of modern soul with flavors of folk, rock, and pop to the Block Party stage on Saturday night in Market Street Park.



Industry rockstar Katherine Hamilton, chair of 38 North Solutions and cohost of The Energy Gang Podcast, in a keynote conversation with energy specialist Dr. John Heil, who happens to also be her brother. Thanks to Apex Clean Energy for making Tom Tom’s Renewable Energy Conference happen!



Judges’ choice Alec Spidalieri of Junction was one of eight local bartenders who competed to create the top craft cocktail using local ingredients at the inaugural Bartenders Ball on Monday.



Carlos Curbelo, former Florida Congressman and cofounder of the Congressional Climate Solutions Caucus, dug into the Politics of Carbon with Apex CEO Mark Goodwin.



Leading marijuana entrepreneurs and advocates took the stage of the Paramount for a conversation about The Future of Cannabis, featuring John Hudak (Brookings Institution), Jenn Michelle Pedini (Virginia NORML), Hope Wiseman (Mary & Main), Steven Hawkins (The Marijuana Policy Project), and Jane West (Jane West; Women Grow).



The finale to Saturday night’s block party, Elby Brass band led a jubilant parade from Market Park and down the Downtown Mall, ultimately ending in a dance party at Zocalo.



At our Impact Entrepreneurs 2.0 event, five social impact superstars dispensed advice for the next generation of changemaking investors. Pictured: Christine Mahoney (Director of Social Impact @ UVA), Meredith Shields (Managing Director at Sorenson Impact Foundation), Monica Logothetis (Cofounder of DreamWakers), Cheis Garrus (Managing Director, Catalyst Real Estate Advisors), and Jill Royster (Strategic Advisor and Investor).





Comments


  • YouTube
  • White Instagram Icon
  • White Twitter Icon
  • White LinkedIn Icon
  • White Facebook Icon

Tom Tom Foundation

100 W South St. #1D

Charlottesville VA, 22902

The Tom Tom Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN: 46-2048771
bottom of page