Editor’s note: Jim Roberts, the executive director of the , is writing exclusively for WRAL TechWire about what’s happening at South by Southwest. Here’s his second report. (His first post updates the continuing boom of Austin and SxSW.)

AUSTIN, Texas – Steve Case was one of the main keynote speakers on Saturday in Austin at South by Southwest Interactive Festival. If anyone has seen the history of the Internet, Case has to be one of the founding fathers on the business side of things. As one of the founders of AOL, he is now a major venture capitalist with Revolution, working on policy issues with Up Global and a Rise of the Rest tour of America where he invests $150,000 into the winners of each of the pitch contests.

Case started his speech with one of the original AOL commercials and then joked on how many of those AOL CDs they shipped to everyone in the mail to try to get them to sign up for the service. He discussed his personal working history from the pizza business to the conversion of the Internet in 1992 from government restricted infrastructure to the Information Revolution, the driving force of the global economy for the last 20 plus years.

The third wave will be more about the other connected devices and disruptive business models on the Internet and enabled by the democratization of capital to allow more people in regions outside of the more established technology hubs to bring innovation to the international marketplace.

As mentioned earlier, Case was involved in the policy behind the Jobs Act. In addition, Case discussed the potential of crowdfunding. Case is also leading that Rise of the Rest tour to go to areas outside of Boston, Silicon Valley and New York to find innovative businesses at organized pitch contests. Case made the point that 75% of all capital invested in the US was focused on three states of Massachusetts, California and New York. One of the stops of the Rise of Rest tour will come to Raleigh/Durham in May.

History Teaches us there will be a Next Version of Silicon Valley, Maybe coastal North Carolina

During a moderated discussion with Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post, Case reminded the audience there have been previous versions of Silicon Valley during the industrial revolution. Pittsburgh was an economic powerhouse with the importance of steel. Detroit was the center of innovation during the automotive boom. And while both of those economic revolutions were happening, the land that is now Silicon Valley was just an agriculture hub of fruit orchards.

I hope to introduce the Rise of the Rest team to the fine waves of Wrightsville Beach to show his team what we are building on the North Carolina coast to bring some new capital to the startups in our region. Before you laugh, think about the launch success of NextGlass and the participation in the Wall Street Journal event on the main stage in California. The recent announcement of $29 million invested in nCino after they were announced as one of the top 100 most promising companies by Forbes and the only company on the list from North Carolina. Under the radar on the coast of southeastern North Carolina, Go Gas Energies was named one of the top ten fastest growing companies by INC Magazine.

Editor’s note: Jim Roberts is the Executive Director of the Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UNC Wilmington. The accelerator opened in September 2013 and already has 40 companies at the coast. You can follow Jim at @uncw_startups while he is at SxSW and to stay tuned to entrepreneurship on the coast.

“These opinions are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of UNCW.”