Every March, thousands of techies from all over the world descend on Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) conference.   Tropo has partnered with Newspepper, The NextWeb and @TheStartupBus others to bring you StartupBus.tv.

This year, 10 buses are leaving from all over the USA.  StartupBus.tv will be broadcasting daily live shows tracking the progress of the ‘tribes’ on the buses as they build and launch a web app by the time they reach Austin, Texas in time for SXSW.

StartupBus.tv will be broadcasting the whole week, but you can get the full schedule here.

SXSW is a great opportunity to network and meet face-to-face with members of our Tropo team.   Both Mark Headd and Johnny Diggz will be in Austin all week and would love to meet up.  Send them a tweet or find them at one of the following events:

State of NOW (#140Conf)  SXSW Cocktail Party Friday, Mar 9th 7pm-9pm Lanai 422 Congress Ave

Catch up with the #140conf Community while you are at SXSW. Jeff Pulver is holding a Texas style cocktail party Friday, March 9, from 7-9pm at Lanai. The lights will be up, the music low, the energy will be high, and you can enjoy interacting in a space just right for making connections and creating lasting relationships. You decide which state is bigger, the State of NOW or the State of Texas.

Startup Bus Daily Show Saturday Mar 10th 1pm-3pm StartupBus.TV

Tropo Chief Evangelist Johnny Diggz will be interviewed by TNW Video Director Hermione Way, Pop 17′s Sarah Austin and NewsPepper’s Anastasia Emmanuel about the latest hotness in the Tropo world as well as Geeks without Bounds.

A Tale of Two City Hackathons Monday, Mar 12th 3:30pm-4:30pmRoom 6AB Austin Convention Center

Tropo Developer Evangelist, Mark Headd, will be speaking about civic hacking and hackathons:

In the fall of 2011 the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore were the sites for civic hackathons organized by a collective of developers and activists. Separated by one month and roughly 100 miles, each city’s event focused on a different area of civic activity, used a different format, employed different strategies and attracted different participants. Both sought the same outcomes; meaningful civic change and the long-term viability of hackathon projects. Looking back on these events, which hackathon will be judged to be more successful? Which projects survived and are prospering in 2012? Which strategies work the best when conducting civic hackathons? This session aims to identify some answers to these questions.