Speakers

Who is Speaking?

How can high-speed ubiquitous connectivity can make an immediate impact on our residents, neighborhoods, tech scene, music scene, universities, and more? What will and could you do with Google’s new service to transform our city?

 

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Austin’s Creative Media Future

Rebecca Campbell, Executive Director at Austin Film Society

Austin boasts the strongest film community in the US outside of New York and Los Angeles. One of our best assets is Austin Studios, a 20-acre film production facility in the Mueller neighborhood. The founding generation of the Austin Film Society worked with the City of Austin to create Austin Studios when land opened up at the old airport. The studios have been home to some 300 productions and brought $1.35 billion into the local economy.

The reputation, expertise, crew base, and culture that this community enjoys will not disappear with this generation; on the contrary, it will continue to grow and flourish as we embrace the evolution of tools that facilitate creating and sharing creative media. AFS will continue to develop Austin Studios to include a public face with screening rooms, classrooms and space for artists in addition to movies and movie support businesses. Fueled by Google Fiber, both producers and consumers of media will be able to do more, better, faster to bring Austin to the world and the world to Austin.

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Are You Getting Enough Fiber? Austin 5 Years After Fiber

Ruben Cantu, Owner at Core Media Enterprises

Google fiber will not only help connect the city to massive data and new business opportunities but it will fundamentally change the way we operate and think about productivity. This talk will talk about how current productivity habits and hacks can and will be enhanced by being on fiber. We will build a whole new infrastructure and way we live our daily lives. We will take current initiatives and lay out a roadmap on how we plan on using Google Fiber to enhance our lives and businesses. We explore how mobility will be enhanced in more ways than one.

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Austin: A City of Innovation, Disruption and Inspiration

Jessica Cox, Featured Speaker Presentation Coordinator at SXSW

Austin and creativity go hand and hand. From the Live Music Capital of the World to the Silicon Hills, Austinites’ dreams help keep everything bigger in Texas (and a little weirder too.) Hear how three Austinites use the unique resources in our great city to grow, connect and build community. And discover how their goals can be further accomplished on a global-level through high-speed, Fiber connectivity.

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The MoPac’alypse: The Obvious Answer to Austin’s Horrendous Traffic Problem

Simon Dudley, Video Evangelist at Lifesize

Austin is the greatest city in the world. Please don’t move here.

It’s no secret that the traffic congestion in Austin is getting worse and worse with each passing day. Couple that with the skyrocketing city population of nearly 1.8 million which is set to double in the next 25 years, and it’s a living nightmare for native Austinites and newcomers alike. What if I told you that the answer to this horrendous traffic problem was obvious? In fact, the answer is all around those of us sitting at Ignite Austin: Google Fiber. Telecommuting through the power of high-speed Internet is the future of the modern workforce. As LifeSize’s Video Evangelist, Simon Dudley will explain exactly how flexible working arrangements can have a positive impact on the city’s traffic problem, but also promote a healthier, happier population through work/life balance. This alternative commuting solution is the fastest, easiest and most effective way to combat the dreaded MoPac’alypse.

Austin’s newest highway is Google Fiber.

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Building Mobilized and Collaborative Communities for Education

Sean Duffy, ELA Content Specialist at Pearson North America

If collaboration is truly the key to success, why is it so hard to create collaborative communities in education? We’ll explore the demands placed on classroom teachers, district administrators, parents and others involved in the education sphere that make inter-community collaboration very difficult and explore some of the solutions to overcoming these challenges that have worked in cities around the country.

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Scenarios for the Future of Virtual Reality 

Burnes Hollyman, President at Gamerista

We heard about virtual reality video ‘games’, Oculus Rift, augmented reality applications and more. The hype seems to just keep building. Where is it all going? Is there a there there? Are we thinking about the reality of virtual reality properly or using old models and concepts which are hold-overs from the world of core AAA platform video games? This talk will address those questions as well as the things standing in the way of virtual reality becoming very real in the not-too-distant future. 

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Keep Moving – Don’t Stop Believing

Joe Iannello, Chief Information Officer at Capital Metro

This talk will feature the following themes:
1. Google Fiber
2. What Gigabit Means For Austin
3. Capital Metro
4. Change – Opportunities & Challenges

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Paradox – Igniting the Human Element Through a Digital Revolution

Alex Judd, Director of Leadership Communications for Spur Leadership at Lake Hills Church

Google Fiber changes things. Our fast-paced world is on the verge of becoming 100x faster. An era already characterized by leaps of technological progress is bracing to spring forward at an unprecedented speed. And, Austin, Texas has been chosen as an incubator to catalyze this digital revolution.

But, what if the possibilities are not limited to the digital realm? What if Gigabit speed pushes people together instead of pushing them online? What if the greatest cultural shift spurred by Google Fiber has nothing to do with internet?

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Giga-Leaping to Higher Education

Emily Morrison, Development Director at Austin Achieve

It is projected that in the next decade there will be about 1 million more U.S. jobs in the tech sector than computer science graduates to fill them. And it’s estimated that only about 10 percent of K-12 schools teach computer science.

In a technology-centric city like Austin, the reality of an under-educated, emerging workforce could carry huge economic impact. In order to continue our growth in the tech industry, we must provide dynamic educational opportunities for our children by providing consistent, engaging computer science programming.

At Austin Achieve, computer science can be found throughout the curriculum–from science labs, to technology classes, and even in our studio art program. Our approach is based on the use of digital tools for tinkering where students not only use learning applications, but also create them. Our partnership with Google Fiber will increase the scope of our college-ready curriculum, allowing our students to collaborate more efficiently, learn more, and reach their goals for higher education.

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