Something interesting happened at SXSW
What if the people who will be working together to change the world in 10 years met today? Many of those people were closer than ever in Austin, Texas this past week.
Sitting in a circle with some of the most ambitious, intelligent, young people from across the globe, something interesting happened.Within minutes, the entire group found itself engrossed in deep conversation, already talking about how to improve the world. What felt like minutes had actually been hours when the sunrise encouraged us to hang up the conversations for the night. These weren’t structured, facilitated conversations; they just happened. InteractATX brought tomorrow’s leaders together, today — the rest is history.
The conversations raged throughout the entire week. With almost seamless transition, we moved from startups to education to ourselves. Maximizing personal growth, one of the hottest topics, left several students contemplating whether they should drop out of school right then and there. This open, yet introspective discussion made us realize why we were brought together.
We have the passion, ambition, and ability to change the world — and have already gone about pushing technologies to the next level, directing the country’s largest hackathons and conferences, and tackling some of the world’s fundamental problems. Discussing the immense opportunity for collaboration in our endeavors, we came to the realization that it was up to us to work together to create a better future. The best part: this was only the beginning of our journeys.
While the over-the-top parties and insightful conversations I had with Dave McClure and Dennis Crowley were great, the conversations I had with the other Interact members this past week were nothing short of life-changing. A month ago, I was just another Computer Science student at Michigan; now, I am dropping out of school, working full-time on my startup, and getting closer to changing the world every day. Interesting things happen when you put great minds in the same room. Try it.
