About

Founders

Vanessa Castañeda B. Journalism Communications Show Bio > Vanessa Castañeda is an award-winning broadcast journalist who specializes in publishing news on multiple platforms for niche audiences. Before she was invited to be 3DS's Communications Director, she was the News Director at KVRX 91.7 FM, founding host of the news talk show In The Know, and the Executive Producer of KVR News 9 at TSTV in Austin, Texas. She has live-blogged for national political events, adventure and technology blogs, as well as television and radio news programs. When she first arrived at U.T. Austin as an English major, she was certain that her course in life was to author sci-fi thrillers. However, after discovering the crippling pay associated with any jobs available for English majors who don’t want to go to law school, she decided to pursue the more fulfilling, yet equally fiscally-challenged profession of journalism. Right now, she's taking a year off from college to pursue entrepreneurial endeavors and freelance. She will enter Stanford's graduate journalism program in the fall of 2009.	Thomas Finsterbusch PhD CS Student Sponsorships Show Bio > Thomas Finsterbusch is a PhD student in Computer Science at U.T. Austin. The native German has turbo charged Intuit's Tax software, enhanced web application dashboards at Amazon, and tweaked the webscape from behind the scenes at Google. One of the rare PhD students who does not plan to seek professorship after graduation, Finsterbusch intends to exemplify that compelling research and exciting entrepreneurship can be successfully married not just in Stanford's and MIT's, but also UT's graduate program. Whenever he's not reading research papers or discussing startup ideas with friends, you can find him on the soccer field, at the foosball table, or on one of Austin's plentiful disc golf courses.
Joel Hestness PhD CS Student Recruiting Show Bio > Joel Hestness is a 2nd year PhD student in the Computer Science Department at UT. He is working on research into the performance, power and reliability of multiprocessor systems and on-chip networks. His family owns a small business building race engines and selling race car parts. Joel grew up around racing, and even helped build the champion engine of the 2006 MoPowered Engine Builder Challenge. Perhaps there is something to his interest in performance and power... Last year, Joel helped organize Venture Weekend 2008, now 3 Day Startup, by filling treasury and organizational roles. This year, he is leading applicant recruitment and will be moderating the event. He shares, with other members of CEO Texas, the vision of bolstering entrepreneurship at UT and in Austin. He loves the organizational experience of 3 Day Startup, which is a step toward his eventual goal of professorship in Computer Science.	Steven Reynolds BS CS Technology Show Bio > Steven Reynolds is a U.T. Austin Computer Science graduate who works at NetQoS, an Austin software company. He has helped launch space shuttle code for NASA and developed yield management software for Travelocity. At last year's event, he learned a great deal about startups, which inspired him to return as this year's Technology organizer. When he is not developing software to manage global computer networks for fortune 1000 companies, he indulges in any new technology. On his days off, you can find him running around Town Lake, dominating at a local trivia game, or playing the latest computer game.
Brett Thompsen Law Student Legal Show Bio > Brett Thompsen is a second-year law student at the University of Texas. Prior to law school, he spent seven years in the semiconductor industry working as an Analog Circuit Designer for Motorola and Texas Instruments. Thompsen worked on a wide range of projects including custom power control chips for automotive anti-lock braking systems. Through his work as an engineer, he developed an interest in the interaction between intellectual property rights and technological development. He is now attending law school in pursuit of a second career as a patent attorney. When not studying case law, he can be found with his wife and two dogs exploring the many watering holes along Austin's greenbelt. This year, Thompsen joins the team at 3 Day Startup as the legal organizer, and will be working to make sure the rights to the intellectual property generated during the weekend are properly secured.

Contact

Acknowledgements

• Bart Bohn
• Jakub Felkl
• Dr. Cristal Glangchai
• Dr. Steve Nichols
• Wade Quinlan

Origin

We got inspired by Startup Weekend, we co-founded Venture Weekend last year, and this year we are excited to put on a new and improved 3 Day Startup.

Promotional Material

Flier:

Wallpapers:

• Sponsors

• Hosts

  • Austin Technology Incubator

  • Chair of Free Enterprise

  • IC2 Institute

  • Idea 2 Product

  • National Science Foundation

  • UT Computer Science

  • UT McCombs Business

  • UT School of Law

• Interact

  • Facebook

• 3 Day Startups