Of Boolean Logic, BBSes, Berkeley, and Burning Man: Early ‘90s startup culture in the East Bay
Our speaker this month will be Maggie Duval. Maggie is a technology, web, marketing, strategy and development consultant, educator and event producer whose work supports holistic, personalized approaches to learning. She is an expert in creating, curating, and producing unique, immersive workshops and conferences where business, technology and arts dialogue in innovative ways. Her work includes research, development, creation and production of multimedia, participative learning approaches and projects for experiential education such as the SXSW-related events, Plutopia (The Future of Play, The Science of Music, Living Systems) and Cyberpunk 2014: A Retrospective, as well as The Spectral Panopticon, Showdown at Unobtainium: Tesla vs. Edison, STEAM3: The Future of Experiential Learning, and NextECon. Maggie brings her multidimensional vision and expertise in both virtual (website and user interface) and physical (events, workshops, happenings) experiential design. A gifted connector, she also serves to foster collaborative alliances between the Austin community, and beyond.
Maggie will take us on a rollicking journey through her pre “dot.com” days at a logic synthesis software design startup based in Berkeley, California (across from Fantasy Records, Creedance Clearwater Revival’s record label). At the epicenter of the confluence of emergent tech and the World Wide Web, counterculture, art, and social activism, she shows us how the unique corporate culture she moved in, cultivated by an enlightened CEO (a brilliant computer research scientist and ‘60s activist) set the stage for and encouraged her to pursue an entrepreneurial path. She highlights her years as her own web development start up and mom (complete with baby on hip as she met with clients) in a small town in West Virginia, and ending on her move to Austin in 2005, helping foster “Jelly Coworking” culture, which laid the rich ground of being for numerous coworking, apps dev, and other businesses to emerge. Spiced with copious amounts of meticulously curated materials from the era(s), including her stint as co-manager of media relations at Burning Man in 1996, it is designed to provide an enjoyable experience of the promise and possibilities of entrepreneurial life.
Join us for the discussion from 6:00PM-8:00PM, followed by drinks and camaraderie from 8:00PM-9:00PM at Firehouse Lounge (605 Brazos St). Note the change of time – this is due to Capital Factory’s schedule during Startup Week.
Capital Factory is located at 701 Brazos Street, on the 16th floor of the Omni Hotel. Once on the 16th floor, there should be a sign at the front desk directing you to our meetup. If there is no sign, and no one is on duty at the desk, we are usually in the room to the left of the front desk.
Talk will be livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/user/austintechlive
Parking for the Omni Garage can be validated at the Capital Factory front desk, reducing the cost from $16 to $5. Details: https://capitalfactory.com/parking/
———
https://www.meetup.com/EFF-Austin/events/243311271/
https://www.facebook.com/events/1840547389590168/
———
 |  |
