Michele Skelding may not be a CTO in the traditional sense, but few would deny her impact on Austin tech.
She began her career in tech sales, working in Dell’s Internet Partners Division in the late ’90’s. She later became an expert in rugged mobile hardware before joining the Central Texas Angel Network as an investor in 2008.
Now she serves as Senior Vice President of Global Technology and Innovation for the Austin Chamber of Commerce, where she advocates the local industry from coast to coast in search of venture capital, private equity and talent.
As part of that effort, she helped create the Austin A-List awards in partnership with SXSW to recognize promising Austin tech companies that are ripe for investment. Last year's winners included
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What are the biggest technology challenges you think Austin faces right now, and how is the Chamber working to overcome them?
Over the past 15 years, Austin has seen many highs and lows. Austin’s economy took one of the most profound hits in the tech bust of the late ’90’s. To recover, local leaders created a public-private initiative to build and diversify our economy.
Opportunity Austin has since been the driving force behind notable improvement in job, wage, salary and high-tech growth. We haven’t just survived, but thrived, even despite the 2009 economic crash and resulting recession.
How do we extend our current success for the next decade?
We can optimize our growth by leveraging our strength in tech with the opportunity to revolutionize healthcare. This convergence of health and tech by advancing innovation from discovery to outcomes and improving health in our community can act as a prolific job creator and a model for the nation if we get it right.
At the heart of our economic growth strategy is the opening of the Dell Medical School and Dell Seton Medical Center at UT Austin, and the Central Health Brackenridge Campus redevelopment.
What are the key factors we need to accomplish this vision?
Collaboration is key. Both inter-industry and inter-organizational collaboration are essential to the success of the community. Austin’s current high-growth industries within technology — creative/digital media, data management and life sciences — have natural synergies that can create a whole greater than the sum of their parts.
Invest in knowledge communities. The importance of knowledge communities cannot be overstated, particularly in the life sciences field. The primary source of funding for medical research comes from the National Institutes of Health, which has been consistently declining in recent years, driving the need for additional autonomous research pipelines. Austin is working towards the creation of an innovation growth strategy that seeks to provide research testing facilities and incubators for early stage life science companies.
Everything rests on talent. Talent supply is the currency of innovation. While Austin has among the strongest workforces in the country (since 2000, more than 225,000 people with a bachelor’s degree or higher have moved to Austin) we must do more, particularly in the realm of middle class job creation and re-training. Programs at UT and Austin Community College are pioneering efforts in short-term skills certification, and have an opportunity to provide far greater resources with their recent expansion and enhanced offerings.
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.
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