Texas Archive

It’s just a couple weeks until the next version of SXSW hits the pavement in Austin, Texas. I still believe this will be a huge “badgeless” year and I keep betting that SXSW officials will eventually not allow access into the convention center at all without a badge.

If you are looking for parties, here are three great guides to help you find free beer, free bbq, free networking, etc. If you aren’t going to have a badge, make sure the parties you are interested in will allow badgeless access. And if you will have a badge, make sure it is with you when you head out to the parties so you can get into the clubs and bars.

Gary is the master of Gary’s Guide and he has an in-depth list of parties around Austin during SXSW. You will easily spot Gary around Austin as he wears a suit with a bright red tie.

Social event guide Lanyrd has an event guide as well. Their event guide includes parties and all other events during SXSW.

SXSHHH has a party guide for all of the free and unofficial events – they charge $5 for the list. RSVPster will register you for every party for $20 – so basically you will take a slot for every party even though you won’t go to most of them and you will block someone else from going – blah on that.

Republic of Austin has a party guide and all of the parties they have listed are badgeless events.

Lastly here’s a link to the official SXSW party directory. My guess is that all of these events will require an official event badge.

Last week I noted that there will be a hackathon during SXSW. Two more interesting events have popped up on my radar that are worth checking out.

Startup incubators DreamIt Ventures and Austin’s Capital Factory are holding a series of “find a cofounder” dating-style events during SXSW. You can find all of the details and registration form here. The sessions will be held on Saturday and Sunday and it does look like you will need a SXSW badge to participate.  The two accelerators will also be holding two co-founder panels on Saturday and Sunday.

On Sunday March 10, BarCampATX will be held at the Black Sheep Lodge. The event is free although they do ask for donations.  I think BarCamps are the original “unconference” – there will be 45 – 20 minute sessions throughout the day. It looks like this is a badgeless event – so anyone in town can attend. The organizers ask that you register here. Here’s the overview for this year’s BarCampATX, “BarCamp is a general developer / tech un-conference with an open source slant. Topics need not be technical, so long as they relate to technology and/or development. This year’s theme is “Discover Something New” so new techniques, new apps, new ways of doing things are all great starting points.”

If you are heading to Austin next month for the SXSW 2012 event, you may want to check out the “app hackathon” that will be held on March 9, 2012. Hackathons have become the big thing in the developer space over the past couple of years. The event will start at 7pm and will run through Saturday morning at 9am. The hackathon will be held at the Austin Music Hall which is within walking distance of the convention center.

The event organizers note, “More than 250 developers will create unique new iOS and Android software and HTML5 apps leveraging the latest in application programming interfaces (API) for these platforms.” The event is sponsored by Zypr (they provide an API to create voice controlled mashups) and it looks like there will be a push to build applications using the Zypr API.  I’ve never heard of Zypr – if you are new to it like me, check out Robert Scoble’s interview with Zypr’s parent company Pioneer. If you prefer text, here is an overview from Peter Bright at Ars Technica.

Register for the SXSW hackathon here.

It seems these days hackdays, hackathons, hack this, hack that events are popular across the world. Some of these developer events have created very successful startups and some of the companies have been acquired.

Austin will be holding an API Hackday on Saturday, February 18 at the HubAustin coworking location. The event is free for everyone – just make sure to register for the right category so the organizers can make sure there is enough of each type of attendee (developer, designer, investor, etc.). The event will run from 8am-8pm with free lunch, dinner and post-event beer celebration.

Here’s the event overview, “API Hackday Austin brings developers together for an all-day coding fest focused on building apps and mashups with APIs. Developers of all experience levels can share ideas, collaborate on existing projects, start new ventures, and find out about great tools and new APIs to play with. Hackers will also hear from some of the country’s top API-focused companies on tips, tricks, and tools for building the next big app. At the end of the day, teams and/or individuals get a chance to present their work to a panel of judges and win kickass prizes.”

The event is sponsored by Twilio, Mashery, Paypal and Sendgrid – all four companies are heavy on the API.

This Saturday, January 28, 2012, the LoneStar PhoneGap group will hold their first meetup. PhoneGap is a mobile platform that helps you easily create mobile applications and more importantly helps you distribute one set of code to all of the major phone OS systems (Apple iOS, Google Android, Blackberry, WebOS, Windows Phone 7, Symbian and Bada). Nitobi, the parent company of PhoneGap, was acquired by Adobe last October.

I think it is awesome that a group is meeting on a Saturday afternoon! The meetup will be held at a public library just west of the university area. Free pizza and drinks will be served.

Here’s the event description, “Lets kickstart the first PhoneGap meetup in Austin. Come to learn about PhoneGap, network with other PhoneGappers in Austin, and discuss best coding practices. On the program is a 15 minute coding session where we will develop a simple PhoneGap application demonstrating some of the key features and coding style. You are wlecome to bring your laptop and code along with us.”

I’ve covered the worldwide Startup Weekend events over the past couple of years. The concept behind Startup Weekend is to bring the community together in a different city each weekend to create a startup (or multiple startups) during the weekend.

The event is coming back to Austin during the weekend of March 30th, just after SXSW. The weekend of events will be held at Hub Coworking which is a few minutes south of the city center. Pricing runs from $75-$99 and if it is like the last event, meals will be provided. You can register here and there is an early bird registration that runs through February 17.

For those of you that are new to the Startup Weekend concept, here’s the overview, “Startup Weekends are 54-hour events designed to provide superior experiential education for technical and non-technical entrepreneurs.  Beginning with Friday night pitches and continuing through brainstorming, business plan development, and basic prototype creation, Startup Weekends culminate in Sunday night demos and presentations.

Participants create working startups during the event and are able to collaborate with like-minded individuals outside of their daily networks. All teams hear talks by industry leaders and receive valuable feedback from local entrepreneurials. The weekend is centered around action, innovation, and education.  Whether you are looking for feedback on a idea, a co-founder, specific skill sets, or a team to help you execute, Startup Weekends are the perfect environment in which to test your idea and take the first steps towards launching your own startup.”

Here are some groovy web tech events coming up in Austin that are worth checking out:

1 Semester Startup Demo Day Fall 2011 – December 1

From the event registration, “1 Semester Startup invites you to Demo Day where we will showcase the 20 undergraduate startups from our inaugural Fall 2011 class. Undergraduate students experienced entrepreneurship first-hand, learning from some of the most successful entrepreneurs in Austin. University of Texas students from many different departments including Computer Science, Engineering and Management started companies and were assisted with a semester-long program of startup acceleration: speakers, mentors, and supervised project work. Mentors are exceptional people who have successfully started one or more companies.” register here

Austin Web Bash – December 13

Over 15 monthly web groups are coming together for the mega huge Austin Web Bash. The party is free but you need to bring at least one can of food for the Austin Area Food Bank. register here

Full-day Running Lean Workshop by Ash Maurya

If you are into the lean startup movement, the Austin Lean Startup Circle has put together a full day training session hosted by Ash Maurya. The event will be held at Tech Ranch Austin and costs $250 – looks like there are 7 tickets left.  register here

Remember to signup for Joshua Baer’s weekly Austin events mailing list on StartupDigest.