Ignite Comes to Austin

What would you say in five minutes? That was the question asked to 16 Austinites in preparation for the inaugural Ignite Austin event held at The Phoenix. The first Ignite was held in Seattle four years ago and has since spread to more than a dozen other cities. The overarching theme is that each presenter has exactly five minutes to share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. It may be surprising that it took Austin this long to jump on the band wagon; but nevertheless, it was a successful and unique event for a Wednesday night.

The event opened with a paper airplane contest to get the crowd involved. It was then followed by two sessions of eight presentations, ranging in topics from “How to Write a Book” to “How to Open a Beer with Anything.” As expected, some were more self indulgent than others. Granted, they did have five minutes on stage presenting to a group of 300+ like-minded techy, entrepreneur types, so why not take advantage of the audience?

I’ll have to say I was most entertained by Lani Rosales’ presentation, “Etymology of Curse Words” along with an ad-hoc presentation, the “Endocrinology of Social Relationships” thrown together by Jennie Chen after the crowd requested more presentations by the ladies.

I had a chance to talk with Josh Jones-Dilworth, Founder and CEO of Jones-Dilworth, Inc. a PR and marketing consulting firm focused on bringing early-stage technologies to market, and co-organizer of the event, regarding the vision of bringing Ignite to Austin.

Below are also a few photos from the event:

Paper Airplane Contest

Whurley (presenter)

John Robert Reed of Jones-Dilworth, Inc., Lauran Driver of WCG, Tammy Lynn Gilmore of SXSW

Sally Bage of WCG, Lorin Rivers (presenter), Chris Fagan, Ursula Garcia

Benn & Lani Rosales (presenter) of New Media Labs

By: Lauran Driver

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