Last week tech billionaire Elon Musk unveiled the prototype for an electric sports car that flies, like a rocket.

Meanwhile, I’m still figuring out how to operate our new Toyota RAV4 plug-in hybrid.

The vehicle my partner, Tim, and I bought six weeks ago came with more gadgets than I can handle while responsibly operating a moving vehicle — so many, in fact, that the dealership offers a separate insurance policy just to cover the car’s electronics. Fixing those parts apparently requires special training that few mechanics have, so, more often than not, they just get replaced, at jaw-dropping expense.

Until I understand it better, or at least develop a reliance on the Toyota’s fancy tech, I’m more comfortable behind the wheel of our 13-year-old manual Ford.

2026 Tech Issue and Tech Jam covers

The pace of technological change can be unsettling, but as a newspaper publisher, I know hiding from it is not the answer. That’s one reason Seven Days organizes the Vermont Tech Jam every year and writes about the subject in this anticipatory Tech Issue. Our research for the event uncovers world-class companies right here in our state that are producing all manner of inventions, from semiconductors to electric planes. Beta Technologies was contained in a single hangar at Burlington International Airport and employed just 21 full-time people when Ken Picard first reported on it in 2018.

A few days later, founder Kyle Clark made his first appearance at the Vermont Tech Jam, explaining the engineering goals of his electric aviation company to a general audience in a cramped room at the Champlain Valley Exposition. Before Burlington’s Hula campus was built and became our event partner, the tech showcase moved to a different Chittenden County location every year, some of which have either disappeared or transformed into something else: an empty Borders bookstore, MyWebGrocer’s HQ at the Champlain Mill, Champlain College, Memorial Auditorium, the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center, Main Street Landing, the Expo.

Like many tech ideas that fly under the radar in Vermont, Beta was not necessarily looking to be found — least of all by a local media outlet like Seven Days. What compelled the company to return our calls was simple: the need for employees. Top-secret sketches could only take a Vermont startup so far; Beta needed talent — and, when it was ready to start building, lots of it.

Vermont tech companies recruit skilled workers from all over the world, but there is no substitute for human interactions with local folks who live, study, teach, create and seek new opportunities here.

At this year’s Jam, taking place this Saturday, October 24, we’re doubling down on that “IRL” theme in numerous ways. For example: the importance of making physical things. A representative from Beta will explain what manufacturing its high-tech equipment entails in a panel discussion with two other Vermont companies: Williston’s Rigorous Technology, which makes robotic systems for midsize manufacturers, and Hazelett of Colchester, a worldwide leader in continuous casting metal technology.

The digital world is less tangible. “The World’s Leading Deepfake Expert No Longer Trusts His Own Eyes” is how the New York Times headlined a story about computer scientist Hany Farid. Reading the June 14, 2026, piece, an astute Seven Days editor noticed that the professor was in the process of moving from the University of California, Berkeley back to Dartmouth College and had purchased land in Vermont. Asked via email if he would speak at the Tech Jam, he agreed. Hannah Bassett interviewed him for a story in this week’s paper, and their conversation will continue live during his Saturday presentation.

Even political ads in Vermont don’t look like they used to. Colin Flanders reported on some egregious examples of AI slop in “Artificial Influence.”

This week’s Tech Issue is full of stories about local companies and individuals wired for innovation. Some will exhibit at the Tech Jam — such as Oru, the Hinesburg company that built a woodstove monitor; it sells a lamp that lights and changes color according to the temperature. We’re checking in on $4.2 billion Beta, too, to see how big it’s grown on the ground in Vermont.

Mostly, though, our coverage — of grid-sensitive electricity prices; an app that can help restaurant owners; an art exhibit featuring images, audio and video of wildlife gathered using tech tools — is not tied to the event. It’s just, well, interesting.

Find the full details of the Vermont Tech Jam itself — including exhibitor bios — in the Tech Jam guide below.

When it’s over, I’m hoping someone can explain my new car, from the complicated console to the driver-monitoring system that knows when I’m drowsy. High tech, indeed.

This article appears in The Tech Issue • 2026.

Paula Routly is publisher, editor-in-chief and cofounder of Seven Days. Her first glimpse of Vermont from the Adirondacks led her to Middlebury College for a closer look. After graduation, in 1983 she moved to Burlington and worked for the Flynn, the Vanguard Press, the Burlington Free Press and Vermont Times – in that order. In 1995, she and Pamela Polston started Seven Days newspaper. Routly ran the business and built the news side of the operation, which she edited for years. She has spearheaded...