Austin, Texas is a very fun and exciting place. During my free time I attended the South by South West (SXSW) startup crawl, chatted with the Wing Chicks in the Austin downtown area, and watched the Hands Up Hoodies down presentation at the Vortex Theater. Starting my exploration at the SXSW startup crawl was a great way to see the city of Austin.

The SXSW startup crawl began at 5:00 pm on Thursday, March 12. The crawl kicked off the SXSW festivities by taking groups of people to various locations to meet and greet with startup companies in the Austin area. I spent most of my time in the OMNI Atrium and Capital Factory, the two main hubs of startup crawl. During my time in the OMNI Atrium, I talked with the makers of JamFeed. JamFeed is a free mobile app created to customize user music playlists.

While exploring the Capital Factor, which was 16 floors above the OMNI Atrium, I met with the creators of WordPress. WordPress is an online opensource website creation tool. The website that our class uses to blog is created through WordPress.

Following startup crawl, I explored the streets of downtown Austin and collided with the Wing Chick organization.

As a result of the SXSW festival, many startup companies set out representatives to promote their businesses to pedestrians walking downtown. I was fortunate enough to be one of those pedestirans. While on 6th street in Austin I was approached by the women only Wing Chick organization. I was approached because I was hanging out with Katie, Josie and Alexis. Wing Chick is a social app that allows women who are traveling to a new area to interact with women already in that local area. This app was created to let women  feel more comfortable about exploring a new area because there is safety in numbers. Although I am male and cannot use this app I liked the idea because Wing Chick is an Austin Startup company and I can relate to the stress of traveling in an unknown area by myself.  Thankfully I did not have to travel by myself in Austin because if I was not with my class I was with my cousin.

My cousin Eli Roth, (not the famous actor/director) is a masters student studying social work at the University of Texas. Eli recommended that we go to the Vortex Theater to watch the show Hands Up Hoodies Down. The performance was a hip hop and dance theater presentation centered around the theme of oppression with in the black community. The show made specific references to the shootings of Michael Brown, Tony Robinson, and Trevon Martin as examples of racism that still exist throughout the United States, including Austin. In addition to representing the history and current forms of oppression in the United States’culture, Hands Up Hoodies Down proposed proactive solutions to counteract the unjust discrimination within communities. The proactive solutions were focused on improving the quality of life of members in the black community. I found the show’s representation of approving the quality of live in the black community relevant to the factors our class has discussed about successful startup communities.

My encounters with people during my free time in Austin was essential to the understanding of startup communities. Startup communities are more than just companies within the community making profit. A startup community is the mixture of ideas, talent and capital coming together to support a quality of life that is demanded from the members of a community.