While the folks over at Animal Planet were busy rocking out to 80s cover band “The Spazmatics” at the network’s third annual cat party, the Discovery Education team was celebrating another type of rock stars: educators!

During the 2015 SXSWedu conference in Austin, TX, Discovery Education hosted and participated in a number of engaging sessions around the role of the business community in education, the power of virtual field trips to improve student engagement, how to empower educators to lead the digital transition and the growing educational technology industry in Europe. The annual SXSWedu Festival fosters innovation in learning by hosting a diverse and energetic community of stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds in education.

On Tuesday, Discovery Education’s senior vice president Kelli Campbell gave insights into how to be successful in the European ed tech industry alongside executives from TES Global, IBIS Capital and EdTech Europe. Also that day, Discovery Education’s president and CEO Bill Goodwyn discussed how the business community plays a significant and positive role in schools among with moderator Brian Lewis, CEO of ISTE and fellow panelists Esra Ozer, president of the Alcoa Foundation and John Galvin, vice president of sales and general manager at Intel Education.

On Wednesday, Discovery Education’s Superintendent in Residence, Dwight Jones, presented alongside district leaders from Houston Independent School District and Wake County School System on how to build teacher leaders in the digital age. Wrapping up the week, Mythbusters‘ Kari Byron hosted an exciting panel on the power of virtual field trips with panelists including Discovery Education’s Kyle Schutt, Google Doodle’s Liat Ben Rafael, and Durham Public Schools’ Dacia Jones. Dacia Jones is the District Science Specialist with Durham Public Schools and works on bringing virtual field trips to all students throughout the district on a weekly basis.