Tech

I sat down with Electrical Engineer and UT Austin Associate Professor Dr. Sriram Vishwanath to discuss the growing technology scene in Austin, Texas:


Check out Dr. Vishwanath's app Azul in the Google App store!

From smartphones to virtual reality, the past few decades have seen some of the most radical changes in technology and Austin, Texas has become one of the leading cities for the industry. Nicknamed “Silicon Hills” the city of Austin hosts a number of Fortune 500 companies including Apple, Google, eBay, and Intel. According to a 2013 report from Dice.com Austin ranked third in the country for technology job growth with a 16% increase in tech jobs posted.

Source: http://media.dice.com/report/fastest-growing-cities-technology-jobs/

Austin is an ideal host for the technology scene because of the relative low costs of living, manageable population, and resident’s willingness to adopt new technologies. Several application creators chose Austin to launch their products before doing so on a national scale. Austin has proven to be a fertile ground for entrepreneurs and the staff of the app UMeTime has taken full advantage of the city’s resources. UMeTime offers daily deals to college students at UT for restaurants around campus. Childhood friends Tim Rothwell and Brett Berman first created the product after graduating from college in California and chose Austin as their first target audience. So far, the app has enjoyed great success, standing out among the multitude of startups in Austin. It is currently in the top most downloaded apps in the iTunes store for the area and over 20,000 UT students have downloaded it.

“There’s a lot of players in this space and there’s also a lot of concepts in the world that are very similar but it’s the few that find something unique and they strive and they crush everyone,” said Kristian Zac, chief marketing executor.

Source: Isis, SXSW, Twitter, UMeTimeCorp

Another app that gained success after being launched in Austin is Isis, a mobile wallet app that lets you make purchases by using the near field communication technology in your smartphone. The app was launched in Austin and Salt Lake City and later expanded throughout the United States. It now has over a million downloads. The app that Austin impacted the most is Twitter, which grew from a small start up to a multi-billion dollar corporation thanks to its appearance at the 2007 South by Southwest conference (SXSW).

Source: Flickr Ian Abrele https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianaberle/

SXSW, one of the biggest “multimedia” conventions in the country is where industries make major announcements, show off their products, and interact with their audience. According to the events "fact sheet" it has provided $490 million to start ups since its inception. In 2013 SXSW had 571 trade show exhibits where 65,000 people from all across the world attended. The conference has grown exponentially from its inception and most recently hosted some of the biggest celebrities including Edward Snowden via video chat and Lady Gaga. The nature of the show is contradictory to Austin’s “small town local” origins and there will have to be a decision as to whether or not they should continue to expand the event or scale it down to give it a more Austin-like feel.

SXSW is an example of how technology has grown its roots in Austin and we should expect to see the event continue to expand. With the right environment of world leading industry and tech savvy residents, Austin might one day take over Silicon Valley for the center of technology in the United States.