You may have been to the Austin Ignite events before, but now Ignite has amped it up for SXSW. Ignite SXSW 2011 is an official event, and will feature 20 super interesting 5-minute presentations, each with slides that auto-forward every 30 seconds no matter what. I understand that one of the presentations will be from Bob Metcalfe who invented this little thing called the Ethernet, and is a recipient of the US National Medal of Technology.

When: Friday, March 11th from 6pm – 10pm.
Where: Austin Music Hall
How: Register Here. Free with SXSW badge, $10 without

If you are not familiar with Ignite, here is a description from Wikipedia.

Ignite is a global event, organized by volunteers, where participants are given five minutes to speak about their ideas and personal or professional passions, accompanied by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced. The Ignite format is similar to Pecha Kucha, which features 20 slides displayed for 20 seconds each. The presentations are meant to “ignite” the audience on a subject, i.e. to generate awareness and to stimulate thought and action on the subjects presented.

The first Ignite was held in 2006 in Seattle, Washington, and was the brainchild of Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis. It was sponsored by O’Reilly Media and MAKE magazine. Since its inception, more than 50 Ignites have been started in cities around the world. O’Reilly has continued to support Ignite—one occurred during the 2009 OSCON held by the company—but each Ignite is independently organized on the local level. Ignite is almost always free to attend, and is supported financially by sponsorship.

The largest Ignite event to date was Ignite Boulder 10 on May 6th, 2010, with a crowd of 875 people in attendance.