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2nd ATX Community Hackathon Incoming!
We're hosting another hackathon February—read on to find out how to sign up!
AITX Team
January 17, 2025
Hello everyone! AITX Team here with more updates this week.
If you’re new here, welcome! 👋 At AITX, we aim to:
Connect you with like-minded peers passionate about AI.
Provide a space for sharing ideas and receiving feedback on AI projects you’re building.
Share helpful tools and invaluable resources.
Before we jump into the regular news, a few housekeeping items:
January AITX Meetups:
Our upcoming meetups:
Austin Meetup: January 28, 2025 | sign up here!
To stay in the loop on all our monthly meetups and other community organized events, subscribe to our AITX calendar here.
Check out our Community Directory:
We recently started a community directory where you can fill out your profile and find other members of the AITX community.
If you haven’t filled out your profile yet, please follow the link HERE and submit your information.
2nd Austin AI Community Hackathon! 🤠
AITX is excited to collaborate with WebAI to throw the second Austin AI Community Hackathon!
When: From February 28 - March 1
Details:
There will be 3 tracks for the hackathon:
Open Source – Building tools and tech that enables easier access to open source AI.
Agents – Creating AI agents capable of independent, meaningful action.
Local Hacks – Building applications on top of infrastructure built by Austin-based AI companies.
There’s more…
It'll all culminate in Hack Fair!
The Hack Fair will be a science-fair style showcase open to the broader Austin community where participants will demo their projects to the public for a chance to win the Community Choice Prize.
Sign Up!
If you and/or anyone you know is interested, register here 👇️
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
1 Community Highlight
So let’s jump in!
UPCOMING EVENTS
When: Sunday, January 19 | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM CST
Where: Cosmic coffee 121 Pickle Rd · Austin, TX
What: This group is for creatives, entrepreneurs, marketers, and anyone curious about AI’s role in media.
When: Wednesday, February 5 | 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St · Austin, TX
What: You’ll discover how Sara developed LizzieAI, an AI-powered account executive for her consultancy, using Zapier, Notion, and Slack.
When: Friday, January 31 | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM CST
Where: Cloudflare Austin 106 E. 6th Street, Suite 400 · Austin, tx
What: Discover cutting-edge AI advancements in this session, including a demo on creating 1-click agents and the simplicity of embedding chatbots, an exploration of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAGs) with insights into how indexing works and its powerful applications, and more.
When: Saturday, January 25 | 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM CST
Where: AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center 1900 University Avenue · Austin, TX
What: Visit datadaytexas.com for full details and speaker list.
When: Wednesday, January 22 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: Kinda Tropical 3501 E. 7Th · Austin, TX
What:
Networking and Knowledge Sharing: Connect with others in the community, share your experiences, and collaborate on creative AI and LangChain experiments.
Show off a project: Bring your laptop and dive into your projects! Whether you're just starting out or a seasoned pro, there's plenty of space to code, learn, and share ideas.
COMMUNITY STORIES
Dallas-Fort Worth unveils over 6,000 acres of prime data center land valued at over $1 billion, positioning Texas as America's leading destination for AI and tech infrastructure development.
Why it matters: This massive land offering could reshape the U.S. tech landscape by creating one of the world's largest AI and data center hubs.
Need-to-know:
Three land parcels totaling 6,000+ acres near critical power infrastructure including ERCOT grid access
Major tech companies including Google, NVIDIA already expanding their Texas presence
Properties support nuclear, renewable energy, and advanced AI computing facilities
Texas offers unique advantages including independent power grid and business-friendly regulations
Learn more here.
The University of Texas has established the Center for Computational Medicine, recruiting HeartFlow inventor Charles Taylor to lead the collaboration between Dell Medical School and the Oden Institute.
Why it matters: This initiative positions UT to become a leader in developing FDA-approved AI medical technologies and bringing them into clinical practice.
Need-to-know:
Center will develop AI tools for disease modeling and personalized care
Led by Charles Taylor, creator of first FDA-approved AI tech for heart disease diagnosis
Leverages UT's existing resources including academia's fastest supercomputer
Aims to launch new healthcare technology companies in Austin
Bridges gap between medical practice and computational sciences
Learn more here.
Beaumont Independent School District (BISD) has integrated an AI system called Amira to help teachers provide personalized reading instruction and track student progress.
Why it matters: This implementation shows how AI can enhance rather than replace traditional teaching methods in Texas schools.
Need-to-know:
AI system provides individualized instruction and real-time feedback on reading progress
Teachers report improvements in student reading skills and confidence
System helps with differentiated instruction for struggling readers
Technology serves as additional tutor while keeping teachers in control of learning
Learn more here.
.
COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT
This week we're spotlighting Bill Leece, who brings deep experience in product management from both startups and tech giants like Google.
Here’s a bit about him:
Currently at Alunex, Bill is tackling one of the biggest challenges in AI development: optimizing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. After noticing how difficult it was to evaluate different RAG designs, he created a framework that uses LLMs to quantitatively assess RAG performance at scale.
His innovative work caught the attention of Manning Publications and will be featured in their upcoming book on building LLM applications.
Based in Austin, Bill is eager to connect with fellow AI builders to share ideas and collaborate.
You can reach him on LinkedIn here.
That’s all for now, folks!
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