5 Reasons Austin is a Geeky Town

Austin, TX is a place full of smart and friendly people, it is also well-known that the city is full of liberals, artists, musicians and college football (Hook ’em Horns!). All of it is true, but Austin is also full of geeks of all types, film, web, production, and of course tech geeks in general.

Austin is definitely a geeky town with a strong entrepreneurial mindset.

Below are the 5 reasons Austin is a geeky town:

1. It’s home to the South by Southwest festivals – enough said.
   Every year, Austin’s South by Southwest (SXSW) Conferences and Festivals offer the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies.
2. Technology related user groups
   Austin is home to many user groups, meetups and organizations that focus on technology. Some of these groups are Lean Software Austin, Austin Java Script, Refresh Austin, Austin High Tech Online, Agile Austin, Austin Linux Group, Austin On Rails, Austin .NET. And many more…
   
3. Entrepreneurial and geeky ecosystem
   Austin has built over the years a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem, a steady pool of really smart young people from the University of Texas, and  there are also great startup resources such as Capital Factory, Tech Ranch, Bootstrap Austin, Door64, The Austin Technology Incubator and many more.
4. A lot of work opportunities for geeks
   The greater Austin area is home to many high-tech related companies including the headquarters of two Fortune 500 corporations in the tech industry: Freescale Semiconductor and Dell. There are also other tech companies that have offices in Austin which are magnets for geeks such as  Facebook, Google, IBM, Advanced Microsystems, Applied Materials, AT&T, National Instruments, Solectron Texas, 3M, Apple, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Spansion, HP, Intel, Silicon Laboratories, Unisys, URS Corp, Vignette Corp.
   There are also various tech startups which attract a lot of tech geeks such as Gowalla, Gendai Games, Smooth-Stone, MPower Mobile, Chaotic Moon Studio, ATX Innovation, Infochimps, LugIron, Appozite, OtherInbox, WPEngine, and many more.
5. Events, Meetups, Etc…
   Austin has lots of things going on all the time, there are a ton of tech geek related events and meetups. If you are a geek and live in Austin, there is always an event or meetup to attend to on any given week. For a list of events checkout this, this and this.

 

Of course there are many other reasons why Austin is a geeky town, for example, there are 10 bars in Austin that host pub quizzes from geekswhocandrink.com… how geek is that?!

Please join the conversation and tell us why you think Austin is a geeky town…

May the Force be with you.