Howdy Potentates!
Technology and policy bigwigs from around the world descend on Austin this week for the World Congress on Information Technology. Expect much news about the-world-is-flat-this, Richard-Florida-Creative-Class-that, and maybe even a Colin Powell sighting at Emo's or Home Slice.
While the marquee names like Powell and some dude named Dell will likely attract most of the attention this week, local wigs-not-quite-so-big kicked things off today in a peripheral event called Digital Regions. Mayor Will Wynn, Council Member Brewster McCracken, lawyer and rainmaker Pike Powers, and State Senator-to-be Kirk Watson welcomed an international group of IT players, many in spiff suits and mad scientist Euro glasses, to Austin.
The Mayor gave a concise overview of Austin's resurrection after the bubble's burst, replete with details about the city's recent score of a new $4 billion Samsung chip plant. (He also slipped in a great pot joke, which the Amsterdam delegation, in particular, enjoyed.) Watson stirred the sleepy crowd, as he's prone to do, with a brisk telling of Austin's keys to tech success, including educating our workforce, protecting the natural environment, and keeping Austin weird. McCracken delved into specific technology initiatives and benefits that give Austin an advantage over other regions. Among those he mentioned were Austin's highly tolerant culture (again, with nods to Richard Florida), investment in clean energy, and increasing focus on the convergence of digital filmmaking and game development.
Our foreign guests peppered the above and others with questions about how specifically Austin came to be Austin, from an economic and tech innovation standpoint. The common response: there's no magic bullet. Rather, it's a strange confluence of all the above, plus quality of life, plus tax incentives, plus the proliferation of live music, plus UT, plus a handful of young guns like Dell and Richard Garriott, and more than our share of good luck.
*Image (c) Matt Wright*
