On October 14, in Austin, SXSW graciously hosted a talk by Suzi Sosa of Verb on the social entrepreneurship movement. It was really informative to me and inspiring as well, because she echoed sentiments that I've felt but have perhaps not put into words - or felt justified in saying. She said that young people today don't want to go to work for a company that doesn't do good - but they don't want to make $25K per year, either. Concentrating on supporting myself and getting an education and all the while wishing and wondering how I could do more for my community is my reality. Suzi gave examples of companies that are making it work, this marriage of profit and giving back. Companies can be non-profit, for-profit, a hybrid, or some other combination along a spectrum that she presented. These models rely less on philanthropy, because they are making a profit on at least some of their products and services.

Her message was that Austin is uniquely positioned to be The Social Entrepreneurship Capital of the World, and how she proposes we can make that happen. Austin is a good location because we are okay with new and weird ideas, and comfortable with revolt. In fact, I might argue we prefer to feel like we are in revolt. The City of Austin designated October as Social Innovation Month. There are great co-working spaces, such as Center 61, and organizations like UnLtd USA, Austin Center for Design and Innovation + that provide funding, support, and education. However, Austin faces challenges in this goal as well. Challenges that Austin might face are the lack education in social entrepreneurship, a need for more capital, and the need for a brand.

One of the best parts of the talk was finding out about the companies that are already leading the charge on social entrepreneurship here in Austin and around the country. One of Suzi's areas of specialization seems to be helping people scale their models in order to reach more people.

Emancipet -  Mobile spay, neuter, and vaccination services
Eco-Rise - Helping low-income schools learn more about sustainability, translating to future jobs
Easter Seals - Help people with disabilities find employment
Aunt Bertha - Users can easily search for programs in their area to address housing, food, job training issues and more
CTC International - Helping Kenyans build and maintain sustainable infrastructure through work
Reaction Housing - Emergency shelters that are stackable and thus easily deployed & transported in the event of natural disaster

I hope to see more of Suzi and her efforts in the future. I can tell that I could learn a lot more from her!

When I heard that a biologist was giving a keynote on the oceans on day two of SXSWeco, I thought, alright. I sat in on Monday for the keynote given by Boeing. It was interesting. Fine. 
Can I be totally honest here? She blew my mind. It doesn't make any difference whether you like science or not. She is a role model for any person, but being a woman, I think of young girls. She pushed through barriers and stepped out of her comfort zone because she loved her work, not because she wanted attention.

If you don't care about the oceans and the earth, and you don't want to care, you should probably stay far away.
But if you do...
I think around 42:00 is when I started tearing up - and the emotion didn't stop until well after I had met her afterward. Who am I kidding? I am still feeling inspired. 

Dr. Earleisms
- No water, no life. No blue, no green.
- We have a planet and ocean that is in trouble. The ocean is not too big to fail.
- Our past, our present, and whatever remains of our future, absolutely depend on what we do now.
- We're really good at killing. We need to get better at caring.
- I come from the preplasticazoic. I know that people lived without plastics. I know that for most of our history, because plastics didn't arrive until the middle of the 20th century, now they pervade not just our lives in a positive sense, but they have gone into the ocean in a negative sense. And now they're there. They are part of not just the present, but the future. As Jackson Brown sings in a new song that is on his most recent album, "If I could be anywhere in time, it would be now" but one of the lines in that song is, "All the plastic ever made is still here." It doesn't just go away. It's an inheritance, right down to the molecular level, very stable molecules that we have synthesized, and that are now a part of our world, part of our future. What were we thinking? Well, I think we weren't thinking. That throwing things "away" would make a difference. It seemed like a good business model. You use things once, throw it away, that means you have to make more, and then make more, and then make more. Except that, there is no "away" on earth, as we now know.

For more, check out her recent documentary, Mission Blue, available on Netflix (Trailer), or her book, The World is Blue. I can't wait to dive into both!

What is it about video and pictures that makes you want to look for yourself? (16:35 & 54:48)

I had wanted to attend SXSW Eco ever since I first heard about it after moving to Austin in 2013. Unfortunately at that time, I was the new kid on my work block with no vacation and lots to do. I resolved to try to join the fun the next year. This made sense especially in light of my decision this year to try to explore more of my new city, as opposed to doing a lot of traveling elsewhere. There's too much unexplored Austin for me to roam the world in search of adventure.
First, I checked out the rates. At that time, they were around 200-300 dollars. I saw something about a student rate, so I jumped on it and emailed to inquire. It was only $150! This could work. Then, I found out that volunteers attended for free. This sounded even better, and was my plan, until I won a Twitter contest and could go for free with no strings attached. I knew I would enjoy volunteering, but since I was using my vacation time, I decided to shelf that idea for next year and make the most of the events offered.
Day one, my big idea is that walking to an Eco conference seems appropriate, especially since parking at the Convention Center is over $30 per day, and I pride myself on thriftiness. However, walking from Del Valle is not an option, and the bus takes something like two hours just to get downtown. I decided to drive into town and park at one of the local ACC campuses, since it's free for me as a student. I walked the mile and a half to the conference and arrived in a hot, sweaty mess. My attempt at cool-girl hair (you know, first day of school and all) was totally done, so it's lucky that wasn't my first priority. Still, I felt energized and excited for my day among the movers and shakers of the sustainable world.

I decided to concentrate on the business/finance topics, since I want to work with startups. And of course, the startups all had an eco slant, so I was still in that mix. My first session was the Startup Showcase: Social Impact, Not-for-Profit Category. This is a contest, but it gives all the entrants valuable visibility and all told, previously participating companies have gone on to receive over $27M. This is already exciting, but the drama is heightened by the short pitches (4 min), which lead into a short Q&A with industry experts. These guys were on point!

The entrants:
Accountability Lab, fighting corruption by empowering citizens to shed light on problems and take action.
Ecosia, a search engine that donates 80% of its ad income to a tree planting program in Brazil.
Kula Project, investing in small-scale Rwandan farmers
to create sustainable communities.
Open Water Foundation, working to provide an open source software platform to help organizations make better decisions about water.
ORGANize wants to solve the organ donation crisis.
pAge drinking papers are an inexpensive and simple-to-use new technology to filter water contaminants.
Pollinate Energy, improving the lives of India's urban poor. They demonstrated a solar light that doesn't pollute the air the way that kerosene lamps do.
Urban Death Project, a compost-based renewal system that turns deceased loved ones into life-giving soil. (I am not positive if these guys actually presented, since I don't remember them, but it may have been that they went before I arrived late)
Semi-finalists were:
Green Impact Campaign, energy audits for small businesses by local students.
and Small Small + Global Latrine Project, a sanitation/compost system designed to improve world health.

Please check out all these very interesting and important solutions to real problems! I have to say, the most intriguing to me, from a personal standpoint, was the ORGANize project. I signed up to be an organ donor years ago, and have also had the conversation with my husband, "You know I want to be an organ donor, right? Because you know, your next-of-kin can stop it, even if you wanted to donate." The presenter was right, we are operating here in the US on very old technology, with independent  state databases, allowing people to die for no reason. I also really liked the search engine, since that's something I can use in daily life.
I plan to blog on my experiences at SXSW Eco over the course of the next few weeks. I was so thankful to be able to go!