---
title: Our Favorite Events During Startup Week in Austin
teaser: 'Our recap of some of the best events during Austin Starup Week.

  '
tags: startup,events,austin
author: Kyle Fiedler
published_on: 2017-10-26
---

It was [Startup Week here in Austin](http://www.austinstartupweek.com) a couple
weeks ago, and it was an excellent opportunity for [our local
team](https://thoughtbot.com/austin) to get a better sense of the businesses
that call Austin home. Our favorite events during Austin's Startup Week were:

![Ben Guhin and Marni Wilhite talking about how Fellows work in City of Austin](https://images.thoughtbot.com/blog-vellum-image-uploads/PC0kPtyqRUWA2r9BcUma_IMG_1128.jpg)

- **A Startup in Government: The First Year of the City of Austin's Design,
  Technology, and Innovation Fellows Program**

    [Ben Guhin](https://twitter.com/benguhin) and [Marni
    Wilhite](https://twitter.com/MarniWilhite/) presented how they are
    approaching problems with our city government's services and technology by
    using research and design thinking methodology. We very much loved hearing
    about the process and seeing how much research and thought goes into the
    services that the Fellows are providing. We loved seeing people in our
    government use research to frame problems and educate our representatives on
    the people that they are representing. Thank you, Ben and Marni, for
    presenting your work over the last year.

- **Open Coffee: Austin Startup Week Edition**

    I mean who doesn't like coffee at Houndstooth?

- **Un.Expressed: Get Real With Founders in Social Impact Tech**

    Listening to the panel of founders talk about their mission-driven
    organizations was inspiring. The panel talked about how they use their
    statement to make hard business decisions. It was great hearing about the
    different risks that each of the founders took while starting their business
    and how they managed to grow past them. [Native
    Hostel](https://nativehostels.com) was an awesome venue for the panel too.
    It made the conversation feel more intimate.

    We want to thank [Sara Inés Calderón](https://twitter.com/sarachicad) of
    [Women Who Code Austin](https://www.womenwhocode.com/austin), [Liz
    Deering](https://twitter.com/lizdeering) of [The
    Un.Incubator](http://www.theunincubator.com), [Preston
    James](https://twitter.com/PrestonLJ2) of [DivInc](https://divinc.org), and
    Danny Pernik of [OpenCurrents](http://www.opencurrents.com) with a
    representitive from the hostelfor being open and transparent about each of
    your organizations journeys.

  ![The Un.Expressed Panel](https://images.thoughtbot.com/blog-vellum-image-uploads/YY5eLNfTQfCYVWA1NKxR_IMG_1133.jpg)

- **The Design Thinking Social**

    During The Design Thinking Social, we ran through the design thinking
    process to discuss ways to improve diversity. The conversation was engaging
    and productive; we’re happy to have been a part of it. We also loved seeing
    how other people have started to use Design Thinking to solve important
    problems in our community. Doing design excercises, like [Five
    Whys](https://github.com/thoughtbot/design-sprint/blob/master/Exercises/five-whys.md),
    with new faces was both fun and thought provoking.

## Thank you!

We loved participating in this year's Startup Week. Kudos to the organizers of
Startup Week for making our community stronger and more vibrant.