Austin4America Rises From SXSW's Military Sponsor Ban with Luke Fischer, Co-Founder & CEO SkyFi

Last June, SXSW announced they would no longer allow military and defense companies as sponsors. This sparked strong reactions from Austin's defense tech community, with one of those reactions leading to the creation of Austin4America. I'm joined by Luke Fischer, one of the summit's creators, to discuss why this matters and how it fits into Austin's broader innovation story. 

Episode Highlights

• SXSW's Military Sponsor Ban and Austin's Response
• Modern Defense Tech Beyond Weapons
• SkyFi: Building an Earth Intelligence Platform
• Why Austin Leads Defense Innovation
• Austin4America: From X/Twitter to Reality
• Innovation & Defense Tech Agenda
• Convergence of Veterans, Health, and National Security
• What’s Next Austin? 
  • “A gravitation of some of the best companies in the world coming to Austin, where we see across all the industries, bio, defense, healthcare, manufacturing.”

Austin4America
Luke Fischer: X/Twitter, LinkedIn, SkyFi

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

What is Austin Next?

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower?

Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem.

As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.