Dinner and an emergency
By Ivo Vegter. Filed in sxswsa |Tags: Austin, Eve Dmochowska, GeekRetreat, Heather Ford, Justin Spratt, south africans, sxsw, sxswsa, travelogue, Vinny Lingham
The show is on the road. On Friday, 12 March 2010, most South Africans attending this year’s SxSW in Austin, Texas, had arrived, shaking off jetlag, arranging phone numbers and registration, and assessing their programmes.
The interactive segment of SxSW started slowly, brightened by flashes of excellent jousting between Marc Cuban and Avner Ronen about the future of television. A highlight was BattleDecks 2010, in which speakers compete before a panel of judges, and are required to improvise to a set of absurdly amusing slides they have never seen before.
What can you say, on the spur of the moment, about a lab rat mainlining TechCrunch?
Crowded networks, tech teething trouble, and the first emergency evacuation of the entire Austin Conference Center facility — a false alarm, as it turned out –interrupted much of the day.
A formal welcome dinner was held for the South African delegation, hosted by the ever-genial Vinny Lingham. He is one of South Africa’s true success stories, having turned Yola.com from a garage operation funded by sweat, credit cards and family savings into a respectable Silicon Valley startup with a big payday in its future. His commitment to the South African internet industry and his consistent efforts and investment in creating ties and transferring knowledge between Silicon Valley and South Africa are legendary.
True to form, he promptly fell to plotting with Eve Dmochowska, Heather Ford and Justin Spratt, and declared that he will attend GeekRetreat the Third, to be held from 14 to 17 May, in or near Cape Town, directly after the NetProphet conference.
A bowl of buttons was passed around, and the colourful Saffas will be walking billboards for their country, their companies, and the various sponsors of their trips to SxSW. After all, this is America. Loud is how it works, and we can do loud.
The Frost Bank building pierces the sky over downtown Austin
The South African party, despite being tired after the long trip, was in good spirits and fine form. The splendid dinner featured a multitude of succulent meat cuts prepared Brazilian-style, accompanied by unfamiliar wines and beers, and topped with desserts to die for (or of). Afterwards, those who still had the energy ventured out into the cool Texan night to find bourbon, music or entertainment. Of those, SxSW has no shortage.
Saturday, March 13th 2010 at 15:39 |
Nice post Ivo!
Huge shout out to Vinny (@vinnylingham) and Yola for picking up tab. incredibly generous stuff.