The Austin Technology Council was founded in 1992. For more than 30 years it has been part of the connective tissue of the Austin tech community, and for most of those years the job description held steady. Host events. Create networking opportunities. Promote education and advocacy. Share information. Give the industry a collective voice.
Those things still matter. But organizations that last for decades eventually run into the same problem as the companies they serve, which is that what worked for the last ten years may not work for the next ten. For ATC, the pandemic forced that question sooner than anyone planned, and the answer is still being worked out.
Austin changed while everyone was on Zoom
Austin tech was already in the middle of a big shift before 2020. The community had grown far past the regional ecosystem that existed when ATC started. Global companies had expanded their Austin footprint, companies were relocating to Central Texas, and startups were forming at a fast clip. Venture firms, universities, accelerators, large employers, service providers and civic groups all had a hand in it (and often their own agendas).
Then, for the better part of two years, every organization became a virtual organization. Conferences turned into Zoom calls. Business relationships got more transactional and more distant.
When offices and events reopened, members did not ask for a fuller calendar. They asked for access to the right people, for conversations about the problems hitting their own companies, and for a clearer read on where Austin was headed next.
Fewer events, better rooms
Hosting an event and convening a community are different jobs. An event fills a room. Convening means deciding who needs to be in that room, and why.
Since the pandemic, ATC has put more of effort into hosting meaningful events that matter to the community. And we are working to have smaller executive discussions, leadership roundtables, and programs built with other organizations. The agendas and topics have changed too. Artificial intelligence, talent and workforce development, semiconductors, defense technology, data centers, access to capital, scaling companies and economic development now fill most of them.
Those are technology topics. They are also Austin topics. When a data center needs power and water, or a chip manufacturer needs technicians the region has not trained yet, the conversation quickly reaches City Hall, the utilities and the school districts. The tech industry is too large a share of the regional economy to only talk to itself.
One tech community became a dozen
Growth created a different problem. Austin now has many tech communities: startups, venture, semiconductors, software, AI, space and defense, medical technology, large enterprise employers, and companies that arrived from other markets in the last few years. Each has its own organizations, events and networks.
That is healthy… up to a point. A founder building defense software can go years without meeting the procurement lead at a large employer ten miles away. A semiconductor executive may never sit at the same table as the university researchers training the next round of engineers. We believe cross pollination matter, and we are working to get people engaged from all parts of Austin tech.
A technology council that serves one corner of that map is not doing the whole job. ATC’s role increasingly is to connect the corners. That means introducing established companies to startups, investors to first-time founders, universities to industry, and civic leaders to the employers who need housing, transit and talent. It also means making sure the people who have led Austin tech for the past 20 years know the people who will lead it for the next 20.
None of that happens just because everyone shares a metro area. Someone has to make the introductions, and that is a big part of what the ATC team spends its time trying to figure out. We are actively seeking the next generation of civic-minded leaders from all areas of tech to help us with this mission.
What happened because they were in the room
The word “networking” undersells what a community organization should be doing. Handing someone a name badge and a drink ticket and hoping they bump into somebody useful was never much of a plan.
All opportunities come from people, so the point of a gathering is a relationship that leads somewhere. That might be a customer, a hire, a mentor, an investor, a strategic partner, or a seat on a board. Sometimes it is smaller and just as useful… one person helping another understand what is happening in Austin before it shows up in the business section.
Those outcomes are harder to count than attendance. ATC is working on tracking them anyway, by asking a different question after each gathering: what happened because those people were in the room? We love hearing success stories from last week or 30 years ago.
A filter for too much information
Leaders have more information in front of them than they can read, and AI tools add to the pile every day. Getting information is no longer the hard part. Deciding which of it matters is.
An industry organization with a wide view of the community can help sort it. For ATC, that means helping leaders know which issues deserve their attention this quarter, which local companies are doing work worth watching, which policy changes could hit the tech economy, and which leaders should already know each other.
When anyone can produce content in seconds, a source people trust to pick out what is important gets more valuable.
Working with other organizations instead of around them
Austin has no shortage of groups supporting business, entrepreneurship and economic development. The older model encouraged each of them to guard its territory, and plenty did. Silos and competition were the moto of many groups. Since the pandemic ATC has proclaimed we are “a community group first, and a membership group second”. Counting success on number of members is short sighted, and being open to helping the whole of the ecosystem is more in line with the future.
The problems in front of the region are bigger than any one group can handle: transportation, housing, talent, energy, water, artificial intelligence, infrastructure, education and economic competitiveness. Technology touches nearly all of them. So ATC increasingly works as one part of a larger network instead of trying to build every program itself.
Still a work in progress
ATC turns 34 this year, and this reinvention is not finished. Some of the changes described here are working. Others are still experiments, and a few will have to be rethought as Austin keeps changing.
The council cannot figure this out from the inside. It needs civic-minded people who care where Austin tech goes over the next 20 years and are willing to give time to it. Founders, executives, investors, researchers and public officials who think about the whole region, beyond their own company. People who will host a roundtable, make an introduction, serve on a committee, or tell ATC plainly when something is off track. There are lots of excuses as to why not to be involved in ATC or other groups, but excuses do not build lasting communities. We seek those who lead with “yes” and who want to figure it out along the way.
If that describes you, what should ATC be convening that nobody else is, and where would you want to help? Reach out to the ATC team.