Last year I posted a blog about the emergence of the Silicon Prairie and the budding tech culture across Dallas Fort Worth. The trend continues to gain momentum, and this week’s inaugural Dallas Startup Week is proof. An expansion of similar Startup Week events hosted in cities like Austin and Denver, Dallas Startup week is a five-day celebration of entrepreneurship and inspiring ideas. The event boasts 15 different industry tracks – including fashion, health, education, and real estate. But the sessions you will won’t want to miss are in the travel track (I know – I’m biased!)
On Monday, Director of Sabre Labs, Mark McSpadden, will share an inside-out view of corporate entrepreneurship based on his experience running Sabre’s tech incubator. His session starts at 2pm at White Space, a hip off-site meeting facility.
Tuesday afternoon, managing director of Thayer Ventures and former Sabre CFO, Jeff Jackson, will moderate a panel discussion on venture capitalism with three travel-tech CEOs. Interesting fact: Two of the three panelists are Sabre alums who have since founded their own travel technology companies. Additionally, former Sabre team member, Cory Egen, is hosting a Friday session on his story of Shark Tank success. Egen landed investment support for his company, Illumi, from Dallas’s own Mark Cuban, seen here with our DevStudio team at this weekend’s #HackDFW event. It may be called the Big D, but when it comes to the start-up community Dallas is a small world.
On Wednesday, SVP of Sabre Strategy, Clinton Anderson, will share some wisdom that every startup should know – how to land the right corporate partner. His session takes place at 11am at Chase Basecamp (1700 Pacific). Attendance is filling up quick for this one so be sure to register soon.
The TripCase team of Ken Tabor and Ben Newell will share their experience running one of the top travel apps on the market. Their session takes place at 1700 Pacific at 11am on Thurs. March 5. TripCase was the first product to come out of the SabreLabs incubator, and continues to attract both business and leisure traveler alike with over 5 million downloads.
The travel track wraps up on Friday with an in-depth session on building travel apps. Sabre DevStudio manager Stephanie Lee and development director Julian Macagno will be lead attendees through how to get started with travel APIs. The session starts at 10am at White Space.
The ice has melted, and what better way to break your cabin fever than to head downtown and get inspired. I’ll see you there.