This year marks the 23rd annual SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin. As a breeding place for discovering new technological advances, this five-day event will take you on a journey into the future as we hear from industry leaders and influential speakers give their insight on the emergence of new ideas and how they will shape our future. We know SXSW can be overwhelming with the hundreds of events to attend, so we narrowed down a list of our top 5 must-see speakers this year.
The Speakers
1. Ken Burns and Henry Louis Gates: Race in America with Ken Burns and Henry Louis Gates
Ken Burns, the renowned award-winning documentary film producer, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard University’s director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, will take their new lecture series to stage at SXSW with their thought-provoking presentation on the importance of race as a critical understanding of America. Together, both speakers will be examining the historic path of race and their insight on how our nation is dealing with it today.
2. Kerry Washington: Kerry Washington and the New Rules of Social Stardom
If you watch Scandal, don’t be alarmed by Kerry Washington’s portrayal of a woman who is having an affair with the president– she is NOTHING like this in person! Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actor, producer, and philanthropist Kerry Washington will discuss how personal branding has changed and what the new social standings are that come with this progression. Washington will be promoting the use of social media as betterment to society through the spread of awareness and positivity about national and global issues.
3. Anthony Bourdain: Anthony Bourdain as Interviewed by Nathan Thornburgh
Listen to the world-renowned chef, bestselling author, and Emmy-award winning television personality Anthony Bourdain discuss his role in the digital media startup Road & Kingdoms and the future of travel media as we see it in today. Can food unite even the most rival countries? Nathan Thornburgh, co-founder of Road & Kingdoms, will be interviewing Bourdain on the topics of food, travel, and culture.
4. Jacquelline Fuller: Disruptive Philanthropy in the Digital World
Jacquelline Fuller, director of Google.org, will discuss how Google uses its large revenue to give back to society not only through monetary means, but also through its people and its products. Fuller is in charge of spending $100 million a year to invest in tech for social benefit. In this presentation, Fuller will talk about Google’s model for investigating trends across the philanthropic and social enterprise sectors, which stems from the simple idea of being an overall good citizen- a lesson that everyone can take away from.
5. Halle Tecco: Learnings from Five Years in Digital Health
Female entrepreneur, Harvard grad, and founder of the first venture fund dedicated to digital health, Halle Tecco talks about a topic that is always making headlines in the news recently- healthcare. Since the company’s inception in 2011, Rock Health has set a goal to make healthcare more functional, reliable, convenient, and inexpensive for everyone. Tecco will share her takeaways from the progression of digital health over this time and what that means for companies. This must-see presentation will answer many of our burning questions about the healthcare industry, the direction it is going, and what it will look like in the future with the emergence of digital health.
Click here to see the full list of speakers at SXSW 2016.
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