What’s the best way to illustrate the current moment in tech? Seven Days’ editors and designers face this quandary every October when planning the cover of our annual Tech Issue. In 2010, it featured a QR code, the first time some readers had seen one. Five years later, a smartphone got the cover treatment. In 2016, we showed a guy entranced by his virtual reality headset.
This year, as artificial intelligence makes it harder and harder to discern what’s real, we decided it was time to “touch grass,” as they say. The term comes from the online gaming world and suggests it’s time to put down the smartphones, take off the VR headsets and reconnect with what it means to be human.
We asked Matt Douglas, the artist who drew the Vermont Tech Jam mascot, to illustrate the concept. The issue coincides with the annual Jam, Seven Days’ free career and tech expo, on Saturday, October 25, at Hula in Burlington.
This time we asked Douglas to show more of the Jammer. The helmet has always obscured the gender and age of the guitar-wielding cosmic character, who could be almost anyone. Hopefully this image won’t spoil that illusion. The point: The Jammer is human, just like the rest of us.
The Tech Jam itself is an offline affair — a chance for attendees and exhibitors to meet in real life instead of behind a screen. Adam Locklin, executive director of the Vermont Technology Alliance — our Tech Jam organizing partner — is a big fan of these types of interactions and always advises job seekers to build relationships with people. It’s why the VTTA has started organizing breakfast meetups twice a month at Zero Gravity’s Pine Street brewery for coffee and waffles, and it’s the reason the organization supports events such as Tech Jam.
Said Locklin: “If you meet someone in person, even if they’re not hiring, they can give you an honest opinion of the company and explain the hiring process. You’re not going to get that on LinkedIn; you’re not going to get that on Zoom. You’re only going to get it face-to-face.”
Locklin appears elsewhere in the Tech Issue, too — not for his tech prowess, but for his volunteer work with the Grand Isle Fire Department. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, Locklin joined the squad more than a year ago. Because he often works remotely from his North Hero home, he’s in close proximity to the fire station and can respond quickly to calls. When he took over the VTTA in 2024 and began interacting with its members, he discovered he was one of many remote workers around the state propping up short-staffed rural fire departments. Steve Goldstein wrote about the trend in “Remote Patrol.”
Another out-from-behind-the-screen story: In “Lunch Power,” food writer Melissa Pasanen describes using Out to Lunch, a new, Burlington-based social networking service that pairs strangers for a midday meal at a local restaurant.
And in the art section, Alice Dodge reviews “Think Different,” a show at the Adamant Co-op in which artists conjure thought-provoking, mixed-media works from the boxes of Apple laptops, phones and watches.
Look for stories about actual tech in the issue, too. In Local Matters, Colin Flanders writes about Project Franklin, a new cybersecurity initiative that helps municipalities protect their water and wastewater facilities from hackers; the town of Cavendish is one of five pilot sites around the country. Alison Novak interviews a former Vermont math teacher whose app is helping students all over the world sharpen their math skills. Courtney Lamdin reveals the details of Beta Technologies’ IPO application; the South Burlington electric aviation company seeks to raise $825 million through the stock market.
Kevin McCallum reports on BioLabs, a new University of Vermont-funded center that offers lab space to startups and bioscience firms in need of research facilities. For more than a decade, artists and entrepreneurs have had access to a similar resource in Burlington’s Generator Makerspace. Membership there comes with access to laser cutters, 3D printers and a newly refurbished Electronics Lab. In “Making It,” Carolyn Shapiro profiles Generator executive director Meg Hammond, who steered the shop through the pandemic and has added new programs and funding.
AI-based tools are assisting Vermont health care providers — and have been for some time now. In “Healing Algorithms,” Ken Picard focuses on a few that can answer calls from patients, do medical billing, read CT scans and transcribe doctor-patient interactions so that physicians can spend more time looking at the people they’re treating than at a computer screen.
At the Tech Jam, Picard will moderate a panel discussion called “The AI Will See You Now.” He’ll interview two of the sources in his story — Justin Stinnett-Donnelly, chief health information officer of UVM Health, and Ethan Bechtel, CEO and cofounder of OhMD — as well as UVM computer science assistant professor and data ethics researcher Juniper Lovato. The discussion begins at 1 p.m., and the panelists will take questions from the audience.
If you need a break afterward, check out the lake views from Hula’s patio. There’s grass out there, too.
This article appears in The Tech Issue.
