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Austin Meetup Recap & Upcoming Hackathon
Apply to the AI Austin Community Hackathon before it's too late
AITX Team
January 31, 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:
Hack AI: February 6 | sign up here!
Austin Meetup: February 25 | 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 collaborating 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!
We already have 60+ applicants out of a maximum 100 spots. If you and/or anyone you know is interested, register here 👇️
In this week’s edition you’re getting:
🤠 Meetup Recap
5 Upcoming Events
3 AI Community Stories
1 Community Highlight
So let’s jump in!
AITX Austin Meetup Recap
AITX Austin Meetup | January 28, 2025
We had 5 demos at our last meetup:
Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash Model
Google showcased their new experimental Gemini 2.0 Flash model with its native tool usage, thinking mode, and our Multi-Modal API: which allows for streaming input and output of video and audio data, allowing for a conversational co-browsing experience.
They shared demo notebooks at goo.gle/gen-ai-github, and also highlighted their Google for Startups credit program, which lets startup founders of all stages get support and cloud credits to empower their development.
IBM’s Open Source Model: Granite
JJ Ashgar from IBM came to show off Granite. Granite is their family of open, performant, and trusted AI models, tailored for business and optimized to scale your AI applications.
WebAI
webAI is designed to streamline the training, deployment, and execution of AI models by offering a unified execution layer for AI that seamlessly integrates cloud-based services and local devices.
Their goal is to revolutionize the AI industry by laying the foundation for the development of Super Intelligence (SI).
Loman AI
Christian Wiens, demoed his software Loman AI—voice AI for restaurants that answers calls, takes orders, handles questions, books reservations & more so you never miss a call again.
“McKinsey in a Box”
Shep Bryan demoed "McKinsey In A Box", an AI strategy agent that gives you MBA level consulting for a fraction of the cost. Shep is running a beta cohort in late February and is looking for testers. ( Sign up here)
UPCOMING EVENTS
When: Thursday, February 6 | 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM CST
Where: Capital Factory 701 Brazos St, 16th Floor · Austin, TX
What: A monthly session for builders all over the Austin area to learn about and build the latest AI technology.
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: Thursday, February 13, 2025 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM CST
Where: 701 Brazos St 701 Brazos St · Austin, TX
What: Artist and the Age of AI meetups are a warm, collegial, and inviting space. All backgrounds, disciplines, and levels of experience will be respected and given space to express their perspectives, opinions, and concerns about the current state and future of the arts, AI, and technology.
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: Wednesday, February 5, 2025 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM CST
Where: ACC - RGC 3000 1218 West Avenue · Austin, TX
What: Get ready for insightful showcases and engaging panels that will provide you with practical knowledge and inspiration!
COMMUNITY STORIES
Texas House Bill 1709, a comprehensive AI regulation framework, is facing opposition from tech experts who argue it rivals California and Europe in regulatory scope and could hinder innovation.
Why it matters: The bill's strict requirements could reshape Texas's AI landscape and impact major projects like the $500 billion Stargate initiative.
Need-to-know:
Requires annual impact assessments and strict monitoring of high-risk AI systems
Imposes fines up to $200,000 per violation and daily penalties up to $40,000
Bans AI systems that manipulate behavior or use biometric data
Mandates documentation updates for any substantial AI system modifications
Learn more here.
OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank's joint Stargate project in Abilene will incorporate a 360-megawatt natural gas plant to help power its massive AI infrastructure, according to newly filed permits.
Why it matters: The power requirements reveal the enormous scale of Texas's AI infrastructure development, with this single facility needing enough electricity to power 90,000 homes.
Need-to-know:
Natural gas plant will cost $500 million to develop
Power output equals 360.5 MW, only a fraction of site's total needs
Project expected to eventually require up to 5 gigawatts of power
Additional power will come from local grid and planned renewable sources
Learn more here.
The Edge AI Foundation has announced its 2025 conference in Austin, focusing on practical applications of edge AI technologies across industries from healthcare to manufacturing.
Why it matters: The event highlights Austin's growing role as a hub for edge computing and AI innovation, bringing together industry leaders and entrepreneurs.
Need-to-know:
Conference runs February 25-27 at Assembly Hall Austin
Features face-to-face meetings with AI industry leaders
Focuses on practical applications of edge AI, tinyML, and neuromorphic computing
Aims to address real-world data processing challenges at the edge
Learn more here.
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COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHT
This week’s highlight is Reid McCrabb.
Here’s a bit about him:
Reid is the CEO and cofounder of Linkt AI, an applied AI lab partnering with companies to develop and deploy bespoke AI capabilities. Linkt AI is focusing on agents that complete complex workflows for SMBs.
Reid also hosts the Hack AI meetup at Capital Factory.
He also enjoys talking Brain–computer interface, rockets and robotics.
If you’re an S-Tier developer, he would love to connect with you. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here.
That’s all for now, folks!
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