SXSW

Day two of SXSW Interactive involved a lot of walking and a lot of waiting. My Interactive badge gives me access to dozens of panels, meetings, sessions and meetups on the latest cutting-edge technologies.

At SXSW Interactive on Friday, Reddit co-founder and Internet activist Alexis Ohanian talked about the “Tales of US Entrepreneurship Beyond Silicon Valley.” In 2012, Ohanian crowd-funded a bus to go through the heart of the United States to see startups in action. What he found was plenty of folks who were starting companies and creating value. “The Internet helps level the playing field,” Ohanian said.

Tealet is a Rackspace-powered startup that connects independent tea farmers with tea lovers. The e-retailer works directly with close to 25 tea growers in nine different countries to sell their products directly to the market. Customers can purchase tea online in individual packets, or they can subscribe to a service that will send four different types of teas to their doorstep every other month.

Rackspace has gone top shelf this year during SXSW Interactive 2013, taking over Champions Sports Bar & Restaurant in the heart of festival activity. Events are taking place daily, and one must-see is the Rackspace Winner’s Circle. Inside the Winner’s Circle, the Rackspace Startup Program has assembled an eclectic group of startups to show off their businesses in a live setting. We are spotlighting startups that are using open cloud technologies to build their businesses. So take some time, head over to Champions, and step into the Winner’s Circle to visit with startups that are doing amazing things on the Rackspace Open Cloud!

Tapworthy author Josh Clark believes the future of sensor-rich devices will take us well beyond mobile to new forms of interaction. In his standing-room only presentation at SXSW Interactive entitled “Where No Geek Has Gone Before,” Clark looked into the not-too-distant future of computing where many traditional single interfaces will fade into history.

Yesterday, Rackspace kicked off The Open Cloud Experience at SXSW Interactive with an exclusive MVP reception at Champions Sports Bar & Restaurant in downtown Austin – our SXSW headquarters. A line of cloud enthusiasts and party-goers wrapped around the block, with the venue hitting near capacity before dusk.

I have had the pleasure of working with Robert Scoble since the inception of the Rackspace Startup Program back in 2011. He is the Rackspace champion of entrepreneurs, which takes him around the world studying and creating media about world-changing startups. He’s is a social media sensation, with over 4 million followers on Facebook, Google + and Twitter. His official title at Rackspace is Startup Liaison Officer, and he is the driving force behind Small Teams, Big Impact, which he directs from the San Francisco office, in the heart of Silicon Valley.

A team of Rackers has put its programming skills to work on a super-secret project to get ready for the Drone Games tomorrow as part of SXSW Interactive.

Seven teams that created startups in just 72 hours while on a bus headed to San Antonio pitched their ideas yesterday to a panel of celebrity tech judges at Rackspace’s Castle headquarters. The top two StartupBus Buspreneur Battle finalists will compete tonight at the StartupBus All-Star Finals against two teams from the StartupBus Alumni bus and two teams selected by an online audience. The final competition is tonight at Champions Sports Bar & Restaurant in Austin, which is Rackspace’s headquarters during SXSW Interactive.

Startup mania has taken over Central Texas as SXSW Interactive officially kicks off tomorrow (Friday, March 8) in Austin..Startups from all over the globe will converge on the Lone Star State, including entrepreneurs who arrived at Rackspace yesterday participating in StartupBus, where groups of Buspreneurs created, built and pitched their startup ideas in the span of a Spring Break road trip.