HBCU Battle of the Brains 2019

The Forrest Four-Cast: March 1, 2019

The HBCU Battle of the Brains returns to SXSW 2019, marking its third consecutive year in Austin to celebrate student innovation, creativity, leadership and entrepreneurism.

This event encourages Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) from across the country to send their best and brightest minds to SXSW. Long-standing and new rivals will battle it out, academically, for a chance to win more than $50K in scholarship prizes, as well as bragging rights, at the third Annual HBCU Battle of the Brains (#HBCUBOTBRAINS) competition.

At the beginning of their four days in Austin, 30 teams of HBCU students will be presented with a business case. Over the space of 24 hours, these 30 teams are asked to provide a variety of solutions from a business, marketing, digital media, and technology perspective. Finalists will then present their solutions to a panel of industry leading judges as they compete for $50,000 and the title of HBCU Battle of the Brains Champions.

Finals for this competition are scheduled for 3:30 pm on Sunday, March 10 in Salon C of the Downtown Austin Hilton. A SXSW badge is required for entry.

The HBCU Battle of the Brains event is one of the many inclusion-focused events that occur in and around SXSW 2019. Find an excellent list of these many March Austin events via our friends at Blended Media.

Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.