Download our at-a-glance Forward Festival Schedule.

The seventh annual Forward Festival, taking place Aug. 18-25 at various locations in the city, will bring various startup and entrepreneurial groups together to learn, share and innovate, according to organizers.

“Forward Festival, now with the most events to date, could not thrive without our community’s support of entrepreneurs,” Laura Strong, festival committee member and president of Quintessence Biosciences, said. “That’s why we’ve made the festival as accessible as possible, as all events are open to the public and many are free.”

The festival’s headliner event is the Forward Technology Conference, slated for Aug. 23 at the Monona Terrace. The day-long conference will give attendees the opportunity to network with top entrepreneurs and hear from various speakers, including e-commerce expert Amy Africa, UrgentRX CEO Jordan Eisenberg and Widen Enterprises CEO Matthew Gonnering.

The first of the more than 40 events is Thursday’s Social Good Summit at the Central Library. This day-long summit will focus on creating and sustaining entrepreneurs who do transformative work.

Parentpreneur Night, which gives adults the opportunity to network with like-minded individuals while providing activities for children, will return for its second year on Saturday.

Back for another year is Yum Yum Fest, taking place 3-8 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 21. Food lovers will enjoy sampling dishes and drinks from more than 20 of Madison’s best restaurants. Proceeds will benefit food-related programming for children in Madison Central Park.

Like last year, the Forward Technology Conference will be paired with the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s neXXpo and Pressure Chamber events, giving local entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their startup and compete for funding.

Another chamber, Middleton’s, will host an “unconference” called Business BarCamp Aug. 22 at Kromrey Middle School. That precedes a networking happy hour at Craftsman Table & Tap.

Forward Festival participants also can pitch a startup or business idea with an investor in a 15-min. UBER car ride between noon-3 p.m. Aug. 24.

Other highlights of the festival include the the inaugural Mini-preneurs event (Aug. 20) for children and.the Badger Startup Summit (Aug. 22), featuring Keith Witek from Tesla. The organizer of the Black Entrepreneur’s Summit (Aug. 20) canceled her event, but she told Madison Startups that she is hoping to reschedule it at some point.

The festival wraps up with Capital Entrepreneurs Open Social on Aug. 25, a happy hour at the U.S. Bank Building.

For a detailed listing of events, visit www.forwardfest.org.

Photo courtesy of Forward Festival.