Tom Tom Founders Festival April 10, 2013

Tom Tom Founders Festival (Charlottesville, VA) – April 11 – 14. A FREE, four day festival in Downtown Charlottesville showcasing enterprising ideas, creative disciplines, entrepreneurship, urban planning and design in hopes to revolutionize the way people experience and think about cities. The Festival features 25 talks, 70 concerts, 6 block parties, 2 pitch competitions, and many creative expositions. Music, Food, Art, and Entrepreneurship. Full schedule at tomtomfest.com

INNOVATION
● Fueling creativity, entrepreneurship and community involvement, Tom Tom Founders Festival and the Batten Institute at U.Va’s Darden School of Business will kick off the festival with U.Pitch. C'ville Decides, a Batten and TomTom cohosted, crowdsourced pitch night for entrepreneurs of any kind. The Batten Institute will award $10,000 in total to the competition's top three winners, who will be selected by event attendees.

● Tom Talks – TED-style talks featuring some of the most significant local innovators making an impact nationally. Speakers include: University of Virginia’s President Teresa Sullivan; University of Virginia’s Dean of the Curry School Bob Pianta; Creator of cutting edge innovation on noninvasive ultrasound brain surgery Dr. Neal Kassell; Professor of Religious Studies and CoDirector of Tibet Center David Germano; IBM’s all-time leading patent holder Rick Hamilton.

● Creator Paul Perrone will showcase Tommy JR, Perrone Robotics fully automated robotic car.

● Festival concludes with $250,000 GALANT Challenge. Ten Student finalists from the University of Virginia have the opportunity to showcase their entrepreneurial spirit with the final three finalists facing a live competition with angel investors and venture capitalist ready to invest.

FOOD:
In 2011, Forbes named Charlottesville the “locavore capital of the world”. Tom Yum: Local. Food.
Innovation. highlights this with the following events:

● Tom Yum: A Field to Fork Expo! will be held on Saturday, April 13th, from 8am to 1pm at City Market, Charlottesville’s Farmers Market. Local farmers and purveyors will be showcasing and offering food. Adjacent to the market will be created a PopUp Park, allowing people to mingle, eat, and lounge while listening to live Roots and Americana music.

● Charlottesville’s newest microbrewery, Champion Brewing, will host a TRUCK OUT! Event on Saturday, April 13th, from 2pm to 7pm including food from the area’s best trucks. Babes in the Woods, Greenie’s, Mouth Wide Open.

● Other event highlights include Weed Salad Bar, DIY Urban Food Growing, and the Virginia Food Heritage Project.

MUSIC
Charlottesville vibrant music scene will be showcased throughout multiple Tom Tom’s Block Parties. Over 60 concerts transform various stages, an historic school house, a public park, a jazz club celebrating multi-genre sounds of Latin, Hip Hop, Folk, Americana, Electronic and Rock. Highlights include:

● The Picnic Day & Concert Series at Lee Park will reopen the popular arts and music venue, The Garage.

● David Wax Museum lights up the free opening gala (Thur 4/11). Critical darlings and festival show stoppers (named SXSW top 10 by TIME) with a propulsive MexoAmericanaWorld fusion.

● Also include: Sanders Bohlke, Beetnix, Black Twig Pickers and David Daniell.

ART:
Charlottesville’s best creative minds are showcased at TomTom Founders Festival through McGuffey’s Public Mural Contest, Urban Sketching, Design Marathon, Piedmont Council for the Arts Gallery Walk, Public Art Bike Tour, PopUp Dance Performances, and the Virginia Film Festival screening of Making Good, a series of short documentaries on local makers / craftspeople.

About the Tom Tom Founders Festival
Tom Tom Founders Festival is an annual festival in and around the historic Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia. Its mission is to catalyze innovation by converging music, art, design and technology to connect people and new ideas for the future. Started in 2012, with an impressive launch lasting a month and featuring over 75 musical acts, multiple block parties, and 30 free events, the festival has since honed it's programming to Founders Weekend ( Thomas Jefferson 's birthday) that fosters creative communities, and celebrates innovation and entrepreneurship in Charlottesville. (www.tomtomfest.com)

Sponsors of the Tom Tom Founders Festival are: The University of Virginia, New Belgium Brewing, Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business, Albemarle County, Relay Foods, Curry School of Education, WINA 1070 Newsradio, CVILLE Weekly, The Hook, 106.1 The Corner.
# #

Official Website: http://www.tomtomfest.com