Booz Allen Finds Innovation and Inspiration in Austin

What do bats, Janis Joplin, and Whole Foods have in common? They all migrated to Austin, Texas, where you’ll find Booz Allen employees forging their own roots in gaming, problem solving, and securing our world. 

Say “bye” to the hustle and bustle of the East Coast, and “hi” to Austin’s hospitable melting pot of culture and camaraderie. Young and old, kayakers and gastronauts, early risers and night owls—you’ll find them all here, collaborating harmoniously in the world’s Live Music Capital (and last year’s best place to live in the U.S. according to U.S. News & World Report).

Booz Allen’s team at the Austin Innovation Hub (iHub) works out of the ever-expanding Capital Factory, a coworking space known as the heart of the local tech scene. Events, conferences, and casual meetups make it easy to plug into the community and meet others who share your interests. 

Creative Director Mike Wikan and his Austin-based team created Tabletop Commander, a virtual tabletop that uses immersive technology and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered natural language processing to help the Air Force run virtual reality exercises.

Such work would be impossible without world-class commercial entertainment talent from Austin’s video game and film industries. Mike was drawn into video game development in the early 90’s after beginning his career as a classically trained fine artist. He and his crew are responsible for such classics as Tomb Raider, Metroid Prime, Doom, and Donkey Kong Country Returns.

Lead Engineer and DevOps specialist Kevin Kingsbury is an Austin-based Boston transplant (say THAT three times fast). Beyond the short winter and 280 days of annual sunshine, it’s Austin’s fast pace and quick thinking that drive Kevin and his collaborators. Kevin knows Booz Allen brings a unique perspective to his projects, “We’re not a one-trick pony rolling out the same solution over and over. We pull technologies from different projects and people’s experiences and marry them together to get the right solution for the problem at hand,” he says.

Following the success of Austin’s 2017 HACKtheMACHINE Navy hackathon, Kevin was thrilled to help launch the next event in the maritime cybersecurity-focused series—this time in Boston. It gave him the chance to “geek out” with the Cyber Security Network (CSN) team, breaking new ground to deploy a cloud environment for event participants. Everyone pulled together to keep the solution safely in adherence to Booz Allen policy, while navigating security and policy hoops in real time. 

Software Developer Irma Kramer feels right at home in Austin, a vibrant, eclectic city that’s constantly reinventing itself. “It’s both a hard-working town where people are driven to accomplish their goals and a hard-playing town where the lake and parks are teeming with people on the weekends.”

Irma organized the Austin chapter of PyLadies, an organization dedicated to helping women get involved in coding Python. PyLadies helped Irma nail a career transition, so she loves giving back to the extraordinary community.

Irma also recently represented Booz Allen at Baltimore’s INFORMS conference, where she enjoyed a chance to combine work with her passion for technical and robotic art. Her exhibit was a robotic art project where she reworked code to react to AI generated music.    

In Austin, Booz Allen works closely with academia and tech startups to identify creative solutions and give partners access to capabilities they otherwise would not have. The city's status as a global nerve center for game development and immersive technology is a major reason why the Army Futures Command, Air Force's AFWERX, and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) have all chosen to establish themselves there. All three programs are designed to leverage disruptive and innovative technologies to aid in the nation's defense.

The artists, game designers, programmers, and audio engineers on Booz Allen’s Austin team integrate defense and commercial domain expertise with best-in-the-world immersive studio talent.

If you’re a gamer or graduating artist who loves food trucks, fishing, or finding solutions to fascinating problems, Booz Allen’s Austin iHub is calling your name.