This school year marked the start of MADTalks, a speaker series that brings industry, business, technology and society leaders to speak to Madison students in interview-style talks about current trends and issues in those fields. Since September, MADTalks has hosted speakers from Chipotle, Microsoft, Citigroup and Uber, and will continue to run throughout the year.

MADTalks Founder Sky Zoom (’19) was inspired by the Atlantic Council conferences held Washington, D.C. that his father took him to when he was younger. Similar to MADTalks, the conferences featured political and economic leaders who discussed world issues.

“As an eight or nine year old, I didn’t really understand what was going on at the talks, but I understood the importance of the exchange of ideas to reach a better solution to problems,” Zoom said. “Fast forward nine years to me in high school, I was thinking about the same thing.”

Zoom and the other student organizers of MADTalks cater to the prominent concerns of students who are looking to enter various industries. The organizers recruit speakers by way of cold calling and cold emailing relevant professionals found through services such as LinkedIn. Now, as the series has grown in prominence, they have made connections to additional industry leaders.

“I think the most important thing is that we learn from our experiences and our past talks that we have held,” Zoom said. “For example, every time we ask for feedback from people who attended so we can know what they liked and what they did not like because the entire point of MADTalks is to serve the interests of Madison students.”

MADTalks are held in Warhawk Hall during Warhawk Time, typically on Wednesdays. The next talk—Putting a Chip in your Brain—will be on Feb. 2, led by Kernal Founder and CEO Bryan Johnson.

“There are still a lot of students who are genuinely interested in a lot of topics in business, tech, society, politics,” Zoom said. “With MADTalks, I hope that they get some type of insight into the types of topics and career that they would be interested in.”