Austin was full of surprises almost immediately. Staying a little outside of the city gave me a different perspective than was received in Boulder, and despite feeling like the days were a little more packed with meetings (in part due to the commute, I’m sure), we still managed quite a lot of time to mingle, linger, and explore with the locals.

The first major flex time breakthrough came with guest passes to the creative/gaming portions of SXSW. We were immediately hit by a wall of activity. Being able to walk in and experience new and upcoming technologies and meet the people behind it was truly incredible. First, we got to solder an LED light fixture onto a tiny circuit board. All of the parts, including the solder and soldering iron, were manufactured by a company called Sparkfun. What was once a startup is now a successful online venture in building and selling home kits designed for younger ages to learn to put technological hardware together an d experiment with what is created through those kits. Directly next to Sparkfun’s area were countless 3D and laser printers that we got to see in action. The most impressive thing I heard concerning those was that a lot of the parts used for manufacturing new 3D printers are actually 3D printed.

Later in the day, we got to test out what can be considered one of the most successful startups of all time: the Oculus Rift VR system. I got a moment to talk to one of the higher ups from the company (he didn’t specify his position) but he explained the current problems they were dealing with as far as technology goes and a portion of the vision for the company. The man described to me the “future” as he saw it:every household would eventually have one of these devices and the headsets will become wireless to integrate every feature of the room into whichever game you seem to be playing. After more wandering and chatting with a lot of video game startups, it was time for our next adventure.

The next day led us to the heart of downtown where we stumbled upon a coworking space called “wework.” It was Saturday so there was no one inside from the coworking space itself, but we did find a hidden gem of an entrepreneur hiding out with two other members of his team. He developed a sensor that can be placed inside a well in order to monitor water flow of wells and notify someone if a well begins malfunctioning or stops working altogether. His ultimate goal is to provide numerous towns with clean water they should have but do not because of non-working wells that are incredibly difficult to get there. With his system, instead of having to send a person (which can sometimes be a travel of a week or more) to check the status of wells, water can instead be monitored remotely. The device only costs $105 and takes about 5 minutes to install, which is a fraction compared to the manpower that would be necessary to keep many locations on regular checkup routines.

The finer details of the flexible time in Austin included riding bikes around the city, chatting with a worker at a yoga studio, finding local restaurants, and experiencing Lyft for the first time. Yet,despite all of these things, the scheduled meetings and hearing about the inclusivity of Austin as a startup community, I found my final piece of proof in an unexpected form. By the time we left, I actually felt like I was a local. I spoke a little differently (see the many references to saying “southby” versus “south by southwest), knew where the popular streets and good hangouts were, and had not only a decent grasp of the city but of the people. Not to mention we got to finish the trip exploring some of the beautiful Austin land with an added bonus of driving a tractor.