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Tech & Politics Speaker Series: Erin Defossé, Aceable
October 4, 2018 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Free
This fall, Austin Tech Alliance is partnering with TX Votes to put together a speaker series called Tech & Politics on the first Thursday of every month on the campus of the University of Texas. This series will bring in speakers from the tech industry to speak about the importance of voting and civic engagement, especially as it relates to STEM. The program for the evening includes a short keynote, a fireside chat, and an audience Q&A. There will also be a booth to register to vote.
Our October speaker will be Erin Defossé, the Chief Strategy Officer at Aceable and founder of TechVotes.
This series is focused on engaging STEM students. UT Austin students pursuing STEM majors voted at rates about ten percent lower than the UT average of 56.5 percent. For example, students in Computer and Information Sciences fields of study voted at 45.2 percent, Engineering and Engineering Technologies voted at 43.5 percent, Mathematics and Statistics voted at 43.5 percent, and Physical Science voted at 44.5 percent. Biology and Biomedical sciences saw the highest turnout rate of any STEM field with 51.2 percent. This data comes from the 2016 National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement.
About TX Votes
TX Votes is a non-partisan student organization at the University of Texas at Austin that invites students campus wide to increase electoral participation and create more voters and better citizens. Each election cycle, TX Votes, in partnership with the Annette Strauss Institute, organizes and coordinates Get Out the Vote activities including registration booths, deputization sessions, and campus competitions. During off election cycles, TX Votes educates the UT community and engages in respectful and civil discourse on important issues. The STEM Committee of TX Votes has previously organized a voter registration drive in the GDC that registered a student to vote for every three minutes spent tabling.
About Austin Tech Alliance
Austin Tech Alliance is a non-partisan, member-based nonprofit with a mission to promote civic engagement in Austin’s tech sector. ATA focuses on educating the tech grassroots on policy issues that impact them; advocating for using tech as a tool to help solve civic challenges; and activating the tech sector to speak up, participate, and vote.
About Erin Defossé
As Chief Strategy Officer, Erin is responsible for corporate development and strategic partnerships at Aceable designed to expand Aceable’s markets and grow the company. Previously he held the roles of Chief Product Officer & Chief Operating Officer where he managed all product, engineering, content, and regulatory operations for the company. Before joining Aceable, he was SVP of Product Management at Bazaarvoice.
Erin got his start in tech as co-founder and CTO of Isochron Data, a venture backed IoT company that he and his co-founder created while getting their MBA at The University of Texas at Austin in 1997. He began his career as a spacecraft systems engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and holds an MBA and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from UT Austin and an MS in Aeronautics & Astronautics from Stanford.
Erin is also the founder of The Magellan International School in Austin, an international K-8 private school, and founder and principal at TechVotes, a non-profit program of the Austin Tech Alliance designed to drive up voter participation in the tech sector.