GE taps maker movement, brings hardware hacking to SXSW [video]

General Electric set up a hands-on “garage” area at SXSW Interactive this year to get technophiles up to their elbows in hardware, including laser cutters, 3D printers, injection molders, and more.

Linda Boff, the company’s executive director of global digital marketing, took some time to chat with VentureBeat about how GE is partnering with some of the strongest forces in the maker movement to boost creativity and entrepreneurship and to celebrate the importance of making and manufacturing. The GE Garage at SXSW was just the first of its kind; the company plans to have more of these mobile pop-up garages in Houston and San Francisco during the first half of 2012 and will set up permanent GE Garages in Houston and Cincinnati later in the year.

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Check out the clip above, and stay tuned for lots more from SXSW.