Q&A with Barton George, Office of the CTO, Dell, Round Rock.
What is your role with Dell and your experience with meetings and conferences?
I work with developers, customers, analysts and press in our CTO office within Dell’s enterprise solutions group. Within the CTO office we focus on technology two to three years out that will impact our customers and the industry. With regards to conferences, I am directly involved with Dell World, our annual October event where we show off Dell and Austin to our customers and partners. My role includes planning for the event, moderating panel discussions and presenting the future of IT.
What makes Austin a top destination for tech and other industry meetings and events?
The evolution of SXSW, now incorporating technology, music, film and education, speaks to Austin’s strengths as a convention destination. The festival takes over the city, utilizing the convention center, hotels, bars, restaurants and more. Similar story for Dell World, now in its fifth year. Centered around the Austin Convention Center, we take advantage of the same meetings infrastructure, including bringing in food trucks, hiring local and national musicians, and using the Austin City Limits stage for customer events.
What makes the area a leading technology destination?
Austin’s technology history began back in the 1940s with the establishment of the University of Texas’ Balcones Research Center. Microchip design and production have played a key role from the early days, and Austin is where Twitter effectively took off when it was presented at SXSW back in 2007. While Dell, which started out of Michael Dell’s dorm room at the University of Texas, is the most famous Austin-based company, many major players have a large presence here, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Google. With a mature ecosystem that includes investment players like Austin Ventures, the region has developed the ideal culture and personality for technology exploration and growth. Built for success, Austin, as we say, is a “feeling.”
