Starting today, thousands of geeks, entrepreneurs, marketers, and investors will convene in Austin, TX for the premier tech gathering of the year, South By Southwest Interactive Festival.

The SproutBox crew will be there in full force. Our own Mike Trotzke has organized one of the most popular panel discussions “Who Needs Venture Capital?” and SproutBox portfolio company PocketTales is a finalist for the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator Competition.

We’re also hosting a meetup for investors and entrepreneurs who want to learn more about midwest startup badassery.

For those of you planning to attend, and for those of you who are just curious what goes on at these kinds of things, we’ve put together a quick guide to our favorite events.

Saturday at 3:30pm

Panel Discussion: Unsexy & Profitable: Making $$ Without Hype
Hear how your business can turn more profits than heads from this handful of Internet veterans.
Hilton A/B

Saturday at 5:00pm

Panel Discussion: Don’t Move! Build a Startup Community Where You Live
Startups and innovation can happen anywhere, see what’s going on outside of Silicon Valley
Hilton A/B

Sunday at 5:00pm

SproutBeers at Lovejoy’s
Come have a beer with members of the SproutBox team. Learn about our process, our companies and startup life in the midwest.
Lovejoy’s, 604 Neches Street, right around the corner from the SproutBox SXSW HQ condo on 6th Street

Sunday at 8:00pm

TechCocktail
Drink and hang out with 30+ startups at Palm Door. Wear a black hat in honor of Johnny Cash.
Palm Door, 401 Sabine Street

Sunday at 9:00pm

The Silicon Prairie Party hosted by Big Omaha
Meet up with speakers, organizers and attendees of Big Omaha while getting to talk to up and coming entrepreneurs and innovators.
Lanai Lounge, 422 Congress Avenue

Monday at 12:30pm

Panel Discussion: Who Needs Venture Capital?
See Mike Trotzke, Dave McClure, Jolie O’Dell, Mitch Lasky, and Chris Wanstrath discuss the pitfalls of venture capital for startups.
Hilton D

Monday (All Day)

Panel Discussion: Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator
Check out PocketTales in this national startup competition.
Hilton

The SproutBox Sprout #6 Selection Committee event this past weekend was a great success. The application finalists pitched their ideas to the selection committee followed by a weekend of networking and fun.

Following a full day of great pitches and updates from entrepreneurs, selection committee members and finalists joined the SproutBox team for dinner and drinks at some of Bloomington’s quintessential spots, tours and tasting at two fantastic local breweries, and wrapped-up with a trip to an IU basketball game.

To see a glimpse of the event click through the photo above or checkout this flickr photo set. Keep a lookout. We’ll be announcing the selection of the next Sprout soon!

In conjunction with sponsoring a couple of events in the Midwest, we’ve extended the deadline for new applications until August 15th. So, if you haven’t already, you still have time to submit your application to be the next Sprout! Just visit http://www.sproutbox.com/apply. TECH cocktail and Geek Dinner are two great events for the tech community and we wanted to lend them our support, but realized anyone we’ve met at the events would narrowly miss our deadline. We’ve received applications from entrepreneurs in over 20 states and 6 different countries, but we really wanted to give entrepreneurs at these events a chance to meet with us, ask questions, and still have time to submit a great application.

SproutBox is excited to be sponsoring TECH cocktail on August 6th in Chicago. Enthusiasts from all over the country will be in Chicago to continue to light the technology fire in the Midwest. TECH cocktail helps amplify the technology signal in under served markets and they have fun doing it! http://techcocktail.com

We’ll also be opening our doors to the Bloomington community and hosting Bloomington Geek Dinner on August 13th at the “Box”. Come by for pizza, drinks and tech talk with all the geeks of Bloomington! http://www.bloomingtongeekdinners.com/