Event producer Engage Digital, based in Cedar Park, saw an opportunity to help local companies recruit national and international talent by working with South by Southwest Conference and Festivals. That collaboration created the Tech Career Expo @ SXSW, an event to be held March 9-10 at the Austin Music Hall.

Engage Digital CEO Chris Sherman said the idea was to try and help remedy a shortage of software and engineering talent in Austin with an event that will allow companies to meet tech recruits in a casual atmosphere. The Tech Career Expo is open to the 20,000 SXSW Interactive attendees, and non-attendees, that are expected to come to Austin for the conference.

"It's designed so you can roam through the hall and talk to whoever you want to talk with," Sherman said. "So, you can bring a resume, or not bring a resume. It's up to you. Most of these guys are obviously very digitally savvy."

According to Engage Digital, the event has the capacity for up to 40 exhibitors, though there is a possibility to add more space by incorporating the second floor of the Austin Music Hall. Sherman said there are already 37 confirmed exhibitors.

One local startup that will be at the event is MapMyFITNESS Inc. The Austin-based company has a variety of products that empower fitness enthusiasts to map their workouts, log fitness information, and network with others to share favorite exercise routes.

"SXSW Interactive brings some of the brightest stars in tech to Austin; we're excited to be a part of this opportunity to grow our network and recruit from this talented pool of candidates," said Robin Thurston, Co-Founder of MapMyFITNESS.

SXSW Interactive Festival Director Hugh Forrest said the expo will build on the networking and recruiting that has always gone on informally and bring it to a centralized location.

"We know that lots of hiring traditionally takes place at SXSW Interactive, and we think the Tech Career Expo will make that process a lot easier for all parties involved," Forrest said. "SXSW is thrilled to help create this environment that will more efficiently bring together top tech talent and innovate companies."

Confirmed Exhibitors:

Dice.com, WhaleShark Media, Bazaarvoice, SailPoint Technologies, Athenahealth, Lab126, Rackspace Hosting, AdRevolution, All Web Leads, Bancvue, CompassLearning, Cosential, Data Foundry, Dell Inc., Indigo Solutions, Luna Data Solutions Inc., MapMyFITNESS Inc., The Nerdery, NBCUniversal Inc., NetSpend Corp, Noesis Energy, Patient Conversation Media, Pixykids, Reddwerks, salesforce.com, SolarWinds, Spacetime Studios, Spredfast, T3, TEKsystems, Trails.by, Twilio Inc., uShip Inc., Vast.com, Vertive, Volt Technical Resources and Volusion