Cockrell School @ SXSW 2013

UT Engineering Shows Hospitality to Student Entrepreneurs

What happens when you bring 90 of the brightest young minds from across the U.S. together with like-minded students from The University of Texas at Austin during SXSWi? One UT senior, Maran Nelson, dared to answer that question — and her answer was Interact ATX.

Created by an energetic team of UT students, Interact ATX is a community of the top young tech entrepreneurs — high school students, undergraduates and graduate students — from around the country. Nelson, a psychology major, joined forces with the Cockrell School student organization Technology Entrepreneurship Society to bring the concept to fruition, including raising more than $50,000 from sponsors to help pay for travel and SXSWi badges for the group. The Cockrell School and the Longhorn Startup Class and Camp helped sponsor the group.

To kick off their weekend, the Cockrell School of Engineering hosted the students for a Burnt Orange Breakfast in the Engineering Teaching Center (ETC) T Room, where Interact ATX attendees mingled with each other and Cockrell School faculty and staff. The group was welcomed by Dean Gregory L. Fenves and professor of innovation Bob Metcalfe. Metcalfe offered a sports-style pep talk, relating the creation of innovative tech startups to football. Everyone has important positions, or roles, to play and every startup needs a quarterback. Dean Fenves pointed out that Metcalfe would then serve as the startup coach.

The breakfast included tours of the ETC 3-D printing labs, given by mechanical engineering associate professor Carolyn Seepersad and her students. 3-D printing was a hot topic at SXSWi and the students were fascinated to learn that the roots of this technology trace back to the very place of their tour.

Following the breakfast, the students had the opportunity to showcase their business ideas at the Capital Factory, a co-working space for Austin tech startups, led by Longhorn Startup Class co-instructor Joshua Baer.

“Given the relationships that were made and the groundwork we’ve already done,” Interact ATX founder Nelson said, “I am so tremendously excited to get to put this together again in the future.”