By LAURA LOREK
Founder of Silicon Hills News

logoIt’s less than a month to go until the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi kicks off.
But if you can’t wait that long and you can’t travel to Russia, there’s a solution much closer in Austin.
It’s the Austin Startup 2014 Winter Games! The event begins at 1 p.m. at the Austin Music Hall on Jan. 25th. Tickets cost $10 to attend.
The Austin Startup Games are like the Olympics for nerds. A bunch of startups will come together to compete in Ping-Pong, foosball, darts, shuffleboard, flip cup, beer pong, giant Connect4, Pop-A-Shot and trivia. And if past games are any indication, these athletes will also imbibe a lot of beer and other refreshments.
The Austin Startup Games started in 2012 by entrepreneurs from eight startup companies. The goal is to give back to the community and have fun doing it. All of the money raised gets donated to local charities.
The Austin Startup Games has since doubled in size with 16 startups competing in the winter games. Those startups are Adlucent, Adometry, Boundless Network, Build a Sign, Capital Factory, Chaotic Moon, CSID, Headspring, Living Direct, Map My Fitness, Main Street Hub, Mass Relevance, SpareFoot, Spiceworks, Spredfast and uShip.
Also, the CEOs of those startups will compete in the final event of the game, which is a surprise and it will not be revealed until the games begin. Last year, the surprise event was a mechanical bull.