Social Impact BuildFest
The Social Impact BuildFest is an annual event hosted by the Texas Immersive Institute. It is a weekend-long event that brings UT Austin students, professionals, and innovators together. Our goal is to inspire and encourage this diverse group of participants to embrace community, storytelling, design and XR in order to create solutions for real problems they see around campus and Austin every day.
Join us and be part of real social change!
Explore previous years:
2025 BuildFest - Coming on Spring 2025
BuildFest 2024
Mental Health | Environmental Justice | Economic Inequalities | LGBTQA+ Impact | Breaking Traditional Education
This year's Social Impact BuildFest welcomed around 68 participants, both undergraduate and graduate students from The University of Texas. This group represented 13 different schools around campus and created a total of 8 virtual worlds in Meta Horizon Worlds to address a social issue.
Subject matter experts (aka Social Impact Mentors): John Schwartz, Benjamin Salazar, Deirdre Walsh, Madison Phelan
Tech Mentors: Raul Carvajal, Ryan Hartsell, Kirsten Hudson, Kyle Render, Matt Torres (aka Tellous)
Judges: Amy Seidenwurm, Raul Carvajal, Benjamin Salazar, Blake Kammerdiener, Erin Reilly
Prize Sponsors: Blake Kammerdiener (SXSW), Ben Enos (The Escape Game), Jason Shin (Wonderspaces)
TXI Student Team: Keyur Kadle, Thomas Ybarra, Sarvesh Chidambaram, Adamaris Lopez
BuildFest 2023
Mental Health and Wellness | Environmental Inequities | Access Needs of Disabled Students | Race Visibility | Gender Inclusivity