IC² researcher and Fellow featured in Statesman article on how landing MCC made Austin a tech hub.
IC² Senior Research Scientist David Gibson and IC² Fellow Pike Powers were featured this week in an article in the Austin American-Statesman on the successful effort to bring the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp. to Austin in the 1980s. Austin’s win against a field of 57 cities changed national perception of the city and The University of Texas at Austin, which led to the recruitment of subsequent large manufacturing and R&D facilities and the ensuing Austin tech boom.
MCC was the first for-profit computer industry R&D consortium in the US, created at a time of anxiety over Japanese competition. “The MCC was an inflection point for Austin’s evolution. People on the West and East Coasts didn’t think of Austin too much before it won the MCC,” said Gibson, who co-authored a noted book on the founding and impact of the consortium.
For more information:
- “Austin is a tech hot spot. It wasn’t always this way,” Austin American-Statesman, 10/12/2018
- R&D Collaboration on Trial: The Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) by David V. Gibson and Everett M. Rogers (Amazon)