About Jeremy Fojut

Where the practice
began.

Jeremy Fojut is a venture builder, experience designer, and community architect exploring how places, products, programs, and organizations can bring more of our humanity to the surface.

Founders gathering around a shared table

Conceptual recreations

A 15-year chapter / NEWaukee / 2009 to 2023

Where the practice began.

Before Fojut Ventures, Jeremy spent fifteen years co-founding, creatively leading, and building through NEWaukee. As co-founder and Chief Idea Officer, he led creative vision, originated new concepts, and guided experiences from early idea through public launch.

The following projects reflect Jeremy's prior leadership experience during his tenure at NEWaukee.

An early community gathering in an industrial event space

2009 to 2023

NEWaukee

Jeremy's role: Co-founder and Chief Idea Officer. Led creative vision, experience strategy, community engagement, civic participation, and development.
What it changed: Helped grow a social experiment into an engagement agency that changed how people connect with their city, their community, and one another.
Institutional context: Leadership and work performed through NEWaukee from 2009 to 2023.

2014

Milwaukee Night Market

Jeremy's role: Conceived the initial concept and led its experience development and launch.
What it changed: Reimagined a downtown street as a recurring place of discovery and connection, bringing residents, artists, makers, performers, and local businesses into one shared civic experience.
Institutional context: Developed and launched through NEWaukee. Ownership transferred to Westown Association in 2021, which currently operates the event.

Artists painting before a crowd in an outdoor competition

2022

ART 64

Jeremy's role: Conceived the original live-painting tournament concept and led development of the audience-participation format.
What it changed: Turned art-making into a public, participatory experience. Instead of simply observing, audiences were given a meaningful role in deciding what happened next.
Institutional context: Developed through NEWaukee's work with Discover Wauwatosa. Owned by Discover Wauwatosa and the City of Wauwatosa.

Entrepreneurs collaborating around a shared table

2021

Milwaukee Founders Community

Now Midwest Founders Community

How it started: Jeremy started an informal founder text group in January 2021, which moved to WhatsApp in April. He also hosted a couple of informal meetups and coworking days with other founders.
What it became: Those early connections led to the idea for a larger founder event and community.
Institutional context: NEWaukee expanded and formalized that grassroots network into Milwaukee Founders Community, later renamed Midwest Founders Community.

Project context and attribution

The work shown in this section was developed and delivered through NEWaukee with its team, resources, clients, and community partners. It is presented as Jeremy Fojut's prior leadership experience and is not work owned or currently operated by Fojut Ventures. Images are conceptual recreations rather than archival event photographs.

The Fojut Ventures practice

Across Jeremy's career, one question has persisted.

How can environments strengthen human connection?

Why do some environments make people connect, explore, participate, and play, while others make those behaviors almost impossible?

Fojut Ventures carries that question forward through its own current work in public space, education, family connection, adventure, experiential design, and play.

That question became Human Infrastructure.

Explore Human Infrastructure ↗Explore Fojut Ventures work ↗

Where the practicebegan.