AUSTIN, Texas —
The Texas Tribune Festival is underway in Downtown Austin this weekend.
This year's festival has featured conversations with nearly 300 speakers from the worlds of politics, policy and beyond. There will be elected leaders, influencers and community members looking to make a difference.
A nonprofit called Starts With Us has a huge presence at this year's fest. It aims to promote non-polarizing conversations about politics.
The CEO of the organization, Tom Fishman, said the organization has the opportunity to get people to connect over common ground and bring their differing opinions together to solve some of our communities' problems.
"We're here to try to give people the skills and the tools to refocus on the common ground that we do have and use that to, you know, not meet in the middle," Fishman said. "We love when people have strong opinions. What we want to enable people to do is bring those strong opinions to the table and cooperatively solve problems."
The organization will also have an Austin-based artist there doing a live mural.
"We got to bring the movement to life, and I think that art really moves people and we think our message can really come to life in a unique way," Fishman said.
Fishman said diversity of thinking leads to the best solutions and he hopes to spark new ideas when talking to people at the festival.