Todai to Texas(English)

Supporting the participation of the University of Tokyo team and others in the “South by southwest” trade show held in the United States.

Various teams apply to Todai To Texas in order to participate in the South by Southwest trade show, which is a large-scale event in the U.S. In recent years, a couple of hundreds of exhibitors, ranging from startups to large, well-known companies have enrolled, and tens of thousands of visitors have attended the show.
The team participates in the show for various reasons, such as pure interest in what kind of response their product will get from overseas, and to determine the team's vision for the future based on that response.
Through the selection process, the 30 or so teams are narrowed down to 5 or 6 teams. After that, preparations proceed over a period of six months. The selected teams actively share information with each other, asking each other questions about development technology and business.


Down below is about South by southwest


The event, which is usually held in March in Austin, Texas, originally started as an indie music festival whose organizer is SXSW, Inc.
It is a large-scale event that includes a music festival, a film festival, and an interactive festival.
Inheriting the original spirit of supporting unknown musicians and artists, SXSW has become a space to actively evaluate and support "immature but potential products" and in recent years, it has been attracting attention as a trade show for industry professionals, making it an ideal place for Japanese startups to make their debut overseas.
In 2020, the event was cancelled for the first time due to the new coronavirus, and this year it was held completely online.


This year's event is to be held completely online.
Todai To Texas will no longer be accepting applications for exhibitors this year and will not be exhibiting at the SXSW2022 Creative Industries Expo scheduled for next March. However, they are considering participating in SXSW without exhibiting, and they expect to hold a separate event around the end of this year, so please check the official website of Todai to Texas. website.

Of the 50 or so teams that participated in the program from 2013 to 2020, about 14 had already incorporated when they applied for the program, and about 9 of them incorporated after participating in SXSW. We will also introduce the activities of the program participants later in this article. There is a wide variety of industries and products, all of which are very interesting.

Case 1: Axelspace (a startup started by a graduate)

Developing a space business using nano-satellites

Case 2: HarvestX (selected in 2020, student teams participated and started their own business after SXSW)

A project to develop a fully automated strawberry growing robot.

Case 3: asEars (participated as a student team and continued the project after SXSW)

Developing an eyeglass-type device to aid communication for people with hearing loss in one ear


In addition to these, other exciting products are introduced on the Todai To Texas official website as past examples. Please take a look.

The Todai To Texas project does not end with the creation and commercialization of the product. Paticipants have to send out messages by themselves in order to obtain an opportunity to present to the public and catch media attention. . Past participants have said, "I feel like I've experienced most of the things I should have done in the process," which leads to growth. In addition, there is a lot of information shared among the participating teams, such as asking technical questions, how to press the media, and teaching each other about recommended exhibits, which is also useful for building networks.
In the case of offline events, in addition to covering the cost of accommodation and transportation, there is the added benefit of being able to participate in events such as lectures by celebrities (e.g., Elon Musk, former President Obama, etc.) held at the conference.

・People who have products at hand, but don't know where to put them out.
・People who are confident about their products and want to know how people outside of Japan react to them.
・People who are confident in their development skills but have not had a chance to start developing.