You can hear the gears turning for South by Southwest 2020 — or was that the sound of digital votes piling up?
In any case, SXSW’s PanelPicker is loaded up with proposals from technologists, musicians, filmmakers, business leaders and creatives of all types. And it’s partly up to you to decide which panel pitches end up making it to the stages spread throughout Austin come next March.
Voting opened Aug. 5 and it runs through Aug. 23. Final decisions for the proposals will come through mid-October.
You’ll never make it through each proposal — unless you make it your quest in life. So we’ve pulled out a bunch of proposals from speakers in the Austin tech community that you may want to check out — or even vote for.
The pitches quoted below are taken directly from SXSW’s PanelPicker. Happy hunting — and don’t forget to vote for the panels you love by following the links embedded in the title of each pitch.
Locals with SXSW Panel Pitches
Medtech Sharks of Lake Austin — How to Land Funding
Speakers: Dennis McWilliams, managing director at Sante Venture Capital and SparkMed Advisors; Jack Henneman, senior partner at SparkMed Advisors
The Pitch: Our tank is Lake Austin, and our Sharks are eager to share with you exactly what it takes to get funding in Medtech, Medical Devices, and Life Sciences. According to our panel of seasoned industry experts, including VCs and seasoned Medtech executives who’ve been on the other side of the deal, there are 3 main challenges that a founder must overcome in order to secure trophy-sized funding—join us for one hour during SXSW as we unlock the industry secrets, share our proprietary formula for success, and help you to elevate your business to the next level!
Austin — The Best Place for Biotechnology Innovation
Speakers: Scott Collins, CEO of Startup Advisor Network and BioAustin; Aaron Ali, CEO of Med To Market; Nancy Lyon, interim director of the Austin Community College Bioscience Incubator; and Nishi Viswanathan, director of the Texas Health Catalyst at Dell Medical School
The Pitch: To a large degree, healthcare is broken. We become broken, then a patient, then, if lucky, we are fixed. The break-fix mentality of healthcare is ripe for disruption. I often hear ideas of from innovators and entrepreneurs on how to make the system better—through new technologies and innovations. However, many never make it to the market. Why is this? More importantly, how do we fix this? Austin is globally known as an entrepreneurial hub in technology and software. Medtech is quickly following. We are currently the third fastest growing hub in the US. This panel will discuss some of the things we are doing, individually and institutionally, to lower the barrier to bio/health tech innovation moving to the market. Together, we can change the world.
The Future of Music Tech in Austin
Speakers: Cameron Gibson, CEO of JamFeed, and Nick Shuley, president of the Austin Music Movement
The Pitch: We will have a group of people discuss the rise of music tech in Austin, how these 2 spaces (music & tech) need to work together more and collaborate, as well as the future of the music tech industry in Austin. We will have a panel mix of entrepreneurs, investors, artists, etc to provide a great understanding of the unique music tech culture in Austin. We will also discuss some of the new funds, accelerators, and other groups that are helping move music tech forward in Austin.
Three Austin Revolutions, in Automation, Shared Mobility
Speakers: Kara Kockelman, professor of transportation engineering at the University of Texas; Jason JonMichael, assistant director of smart mobility at the City of Austin; Randy Clarke, CEO of Capital Metro; and Kathleen Baireuther, autonomous vehilce business team and city solutions manager at Ford Motor Co.
The Pitch: Automated vehicle technology is advancing at a tremendous pace and has the potential to revolutionize our existing transportation system. Shared autonomous (fully-automated) vehicles (SAVs) represent an emerging mode in the realm of driverless and on-demand transport, via dynamic ride-sharing (DRS). DRS has the potential to greatly reduce travel costs throughout Austin while providing a valuable business opportunity for ride-hailing fleet managers and public transit providers.
Austin: Disingenuously Progressive
Speakers: Mark Hammer, CEO of Bloomfire; Rudy Metayer, city council member in Pflugerville; Christine McCarey, founder and CEO of ImpactCEI; Lakeya Omogun, doctoral student of education at the University of Texas
The Pitch: In January 2019, Lakeya Omogun wrote an article in which she explained how, as a Black PhD student living in Austin, she felt ostracized. As she says, “All of Austin’s luxuries — concerts, festivals, food trucks, artwork, and the tech scene—are tailored to (and mostly enjoyed by) its vast white population.” This situation occurs in other cities, but in Austin the situation between it’s seemingly liberal leanings and actual segregation is most pronounced. In this session, Omogun explains her experience living in a city that seemingly is not made for her. Following her talk is a panel discussion with a diversity & inclusion expert; an attorney and city councilman focused on diversity & inclusion; and the CEO of an Austin startup who has made diversity & inclusion a business objective.
Transformation in Aisle 3: Tech Takes Over Grocery
Speakers: Adrianna Nowell, senior director of product marketing at Bazaarvoice; Steven Pho, president at Favor; Kenji Gjovig, VP of ecommerce at Albertsons Companies; Timothy Madigan, VP of ecommerce at Tysons Foods.
The Pitch: When we want to make dinner, we can buy groceries through an app, select a meal kit of ingredients to arrive at our door each week, or use the self-checkout lane to buy items at our favorite store. Technology is at the forefront of our experience, but that hasn’t always been the case. As major competitors like Amazon and startups like Boxed and Blue Apron entered the scene, the grocery industry was turned on its head. From (finally) expanding into e-commerce to conquering the last mile, CPG and grocery leaders are racing to keep pace with consumers’ evolving preferences — and often relying on technology to do so. In this panel, grocery and tech experts discuss how technology has changed the way we shop, the challenges still to overcome, and how they think about the future of grocery.
She Got Funded! VCs & Entrepreneurs Close the Gap
Speakers: Jessica Gaffney, CEO of Women@Austin; Genevieve Gilbreath, co-founder of Springdale Ventures; Phiderika Foust, business partner, founder and CEO with Kitchun, Silverpea Ventures and Power Moves; Adrianna Cantu, co-founder and CEO of Revealix
The Pitch: If you’re in the startup world, you’ve likely seen all the articles highlighting the huge funding gap between men & women founders. And if you’re a woman founder, you probably have your own stories about this great divide. The gap is real – of the $100 billion in venture funding that goes to entrepreneurs in America, less than 3% goes to women founders! In this insiders look at the issue, hear from powerhouse founders who crossed the gap and secured funding to scale. You’ll also hear from emerging women VCs who are doing their part on the other side of the equation. Walk out of this session with new tools and bolstered confidence to get the funding that you need to succeed.
Speakers: Rusty Kocian, designer at argodesign
The Pitch: Democracy is failing; the representatives we’ve assigned to make decisions on our behalf are hardly representative of and rarely represent their constituents. What if there were a way to ensure that every voice is heard, a way to govern by electing a mathematically perfect decision-making body—a virtual congress? Can we harness the technology and techniques advertisers and social platforms use to profile customers and instead profile citizens? Imagine we create a more inclusive democracy by shifting influence away from elected officials toward artificially intelligent representatives: 340 million algorithms always connected, immune to influence, and perfectly aligned to the values and beliefs of every individual.
Farm to Tablet: Build Locally Relevant Global Apps
Speakers: Joie Chung, senior design manager at Vrbo, and Owais Siddiqui, senior manager of product management at Vrbo
The Pitch: Global tech companies could use a little dose of the Farm to Table movement – a deeper focus on sustainability and the local experience. Many companies often try a one-size-fits-all approach to product design and development, which can be risky with a global user base. Understanding the cultural nuances and mental models of how people in each locale interact with technology is crucial to creating a product that works for everyone. Failure to localize and test usability within each market can lead to the loss of trust with users and a permanent impairment of business metrics. Join us as we describe the benefits of incorporating local UX research into your global strategy, dive into best practices of product design, and share insights we have learned from launching products around the world.
How to Build a Data Community in Your Enterprise
Speakers: Amy Niemann, head of client services at data.world; Anoop Lalla, VP of enterprise data and analytics at Workday; and Mohammed Aaser, chief data officer at McKinsey & Company
The Pitch: Companies in the U.S. lose $1.7 million dollars per 100 employees due to inefficient data work, per IDC research. In fact, people waste up to 44% of the time they spend on data work due to cultural issues like lack of collaboration. So, it’s clearer than ever that no shiny tool can magically foster data-driven decision making. People make your data valuable. Not tech alone. You can’t afford to wait for your competitors to get ahead of you here. You need a real data community among your employees to make progress quickly enough to survive. Learn how to break down your data and people silos from executives at Workday and McKinsey & Company hosted by data.world. Find out what it really takes to build an enterprise data community and make it your sustainable competitive advantage.
The Term “Smart Cities” is Stupid
Speakers: Greg Carley, VP of product innovation at Hypergiant
The Pitch: The shift from the industrial city of today to an information society encounters one of the greatest challenges we face as a civilization. If we understand the city to be one of its major inventions, the way we understand and build cities stands at a crossroads that exceeds the magnitude of the challenges posed by technological change. Welcome to the emerging field of Urbanetics where advanced aspirations will confront major challenges or radical change in the operating system of society. This new mindset will subversively introduce more efficient, more profitable, more environmentally-friendly and more sustainable management models, based on precisely the opposite of the previous post-industrial model, introducing real-time data as the scientific basis of the city model.
Speakers: Ben Lamm, founder and CEO of Hypergiant
The Pitch: We are currently facing some of the most catastrophic events in history resulting from climate change. A growing number of people are radically looking for long-lasting solutions and adjusting their lifestyles in an attempt to help, but change needs to come at a larger, industrial-scale to reverse the epidemic. This discussion will explore how some of the brightest minds, from researchers to entrepreneurs, are using artificial intelligence to tackle our most daunting worldwide problems. The critical AI efforts optimize carbon sequestration with algae, automate farming systems, develop new methods for waste management, and close gaps in the supply chain. AI will not only save humanity, but lead us to the promised future.
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Live Long, Live Well: Fighting Aging with AI
Speakers: Sridhar Sudarsan, CTO of SparkCognition; Mehmood Khan, CEO of Life Biosciences; Nir Barzilai, director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
The Pitch: Human lifespans are increasing by three years every generation. Just a century ago, the life expectancy in the U.S. was under 50. Today, the average person in the U.S. lives to be 80. Tech developments–and artificial intelligence in particular–are pushing the boundaries of the human lifespan. Research organizations are relying on the fast-growing capacity of data acquisition and recent advances in AI to transform the longevity biotechnology industry, prevent age-associated diseases, and extend healthy life span. Over the past five years, healthcare AI startups raised over $4.3 billion across 576 deals, topping all other industries in AI deal activity. In this session, experts will discuss how aging research is one of the most important fields of science today–and how AI is a key catalyst.
Speakers: Daragh Morrissey, director of AI at WW Financial Services at Microsoft; Jette Henderson, machine learning research scientist at CognitiveScale; Joydeep Ghosh, chaired professor and director of UT-MINDS at the University of Texas
The Pitch: AI technologies have made remarkable progress in the past few years and have now started to substantial impact on our day-to-day activities. At the same time, several prominent examples of Rogue AI have emerged. The disruptive power of AI has been noticed by Governments and companies alike, who are all scrambling to come up with coherent and sensible roadmaps. So how do we now move forward, balancing innovation and regulation of AI to harness its power without ending up in a dystopian future? What are the most promising advances being made by leading companies and thought-leaders to lead us to Responsible and Trusted AI? This panel, with experts from Microsoft, CognitiveScale and Academia, will provide prognoses on AI and indicate the most promising roads to Responsible AI.
Your Future Life in the XR World
Speakers: Hrish Lotlikar, co-founder of SuperWorld and Rogue Initiative Studios
The Pitch: In the near future, the physical and digital world will be indistinguishable. Humanity and digitality will be one. To understand this future, let’s first understand what has already happened. First information was digititized, second the social graph was plotted, soon everything else will be searchable. This new reality will create an abundance of opportunities. YOU will become the master of your digital space! Why? Because YOU can! Your data and the ability to personalize the XR world around you and ultimately to own your world will be possible. That is the future of humanity. This future holds the freedom for everyone to have the power to do anything, with anyone, anywhere, at anytime. How do we use that power to empower ourselvelves and improve the world? That is our why?
Phuck Google and Facebook #OwnYourData
Speakers: Randall Crowder, COO of Phunware, and Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of Digital Asset Trade Association
The Pitch: Companies like Facebook and Google give users the ability to use their services for free, but in return users are signing away all their data rights and identities. People are sick of being manipulated and controlled by big tech companies who feel that they should control everyone’s data. Companies are also tired of being cheated when they receive no visibility to their media spend when they advertise on these platforms. Governments are starting to take notice but are moving way too slow. It’s up to the market to remedy this issue by forcing change. Phunware is teaming with trusted advisors, customers, partners and legislators to take control of our digital identity. This is Facebook and Google’s wake up call. The market is wising up and we are not complying anymore. We’re fighting back.
How Business Can Win at Data Science
Speakers: Madhavi Rao, chief strategy officer at Valkyrie Intelligence
The Pitch: Businesses across industries are buzzing about using ML and AI to drive efficiency, reduce costs and create more engaging products and services. But how do organizations harness these tools for competitive advantage? What separates those who succeed with data science from those who flounder? Join Valkyrie Intelligence’s Chief Strategy Officer for a practical guide to growing a robust data science capability and crafting coordinated initiatives that amplify organizational strengths, drive greater innovative capacity and deliver competitive advantage.
The “New” Retail: Defining a Global CX Strategy
Speakers: Deborah Weinswig, founder and CEO of Coresight Research; Jonathan Bailey, DVP of global creative content at Coach; and Jaime Bettencourt, lead of North America sales and account management at Mood Media
The Pitch: Today, many of the most competitive, reputable retailers in brick & mortar are those fully embracing disruption and rejecting “status quo” of yesteryear, fostering a community and offering true “experience hubs” to its customers. This panel will explore how retailers are working to define their global customer experience (CX) strategy, including consideration across different markets and how to decide what tools to invest in to provide a holistic brand experience that combines digital, social and in-store. This session will also share insights from leaders on lessons learned and what considerations have proven critical in establishing brand affinity and customer loyalty across core markets.
“Party” First: Making Civics Fun in 2020
Speakers: Liz Coufal, co-founder and COO of Good Politics, and Nathan Ryan, co-founder and CEO of Good Politics
The Pitch: Our session will be about what’s missing in civic engagement. There is an increasingly high barrier to entry to getting involved in politics and the current environment makes the effort even more daunting. It is more critical than ever that our generation engages our democracy, but how do we get started? Founding Good Politics, a civic activation organization, we’ve found that removing the barrier to entry is critical in activating our non-engaged community. By throwing fun parties in cool spaces with candidates running to represent our community, we’re successfully pioneering a simple yet mission-critical model to get folks involved for the first time. We’re not here for the politicos, we’re here to show our generation that every single person has a seat at the civic table.
Have You Used Your “White Voice” Lately?
Speakers: Laura Canzano, associate creative director at GSD&M, and Jay Esteves, experience strategist at GSD&M
The Pitch: Multicultural groups represent the youngest and fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population. The Empathy Age we live in, combined with this audience’s rise in both numbers and buying power, heightens the need for brands to become more culturally acute. This presentation dives into how inclusivity will play a vital role in the creative industry starting with voice technology, which is currently suited for white, upper-middle-class Americans. Brands and storytellers alike haven’t tapped the full creative potential of voice technology, and all of the tools are right in front of us. According to Comscore, by 2020, 50% of all user searches will be voice searches. Today’s designers need to be able to think about inclusivity beyond the screen. Are you ready to design the future?
Circular Economy: The Take Make Waste Alternative
Speakers: Anna Tari, founder of the Circular Economy Club, and Mark Sanders, director of ATI at the University of Texas
The Pitch: There’s a world of opportunity to re-think and re-design the way we produce and consume. Our proposed influential speaker and expert panel will cover the overall impact of the Circular Economy sustainable solution. The SME Speaker/panel format will also present and discuss the impact of circularity in all sectors of the Economy including high tech, traditional industries, higher-level education, incubators, start-ups, and city management.
Empowering Change: Connecting the Head to the Heart
Speakers: Kallee Fanklin, founder and CIO of Mindful Innovation Labs; Adi Plantenberg, founder of Future Tight; Navin Kunde, department manager of open innovation at The Clorox Company; and Douglas Ferguson, president of Voltage Control
The Pitch: Innovation & transformation requires change. Transformative change requires a focus on the whole. Mental and emotional aspects must be engaged before people are willing to make physical moves. This panel consists of seasoned innovation leaders, product developers, technologists, and change agents who all agree that human matters are the most important factors when it comes to transformative change and true innovation. They will explore organization design and the role of diversity, structure, behavioral economics, incentives, and physiological safety. In this ever-evolving age of increased complexity, continuous transformation will become a way of life. Come learn and explore with us as we discuss the characteristics and approaches that will define the workplace cultures of the future.
Microcasting – Podcasting for an Audience of One
Speakers: Adam Lemmon, owner of Badass Backpacks, and Matthew Carey, associate musical director at bookofmormonmusical.com.au.
The Pitch: We’ll host a discussion about microcasting – the act of creating short audio content intended for a small & specific audience. Microcasts are digital speech bubbles. More personal and direct than a podcast, each episode serves to communicate a particular thought or idea. A microcast isn’t a broadcast: it’s focused in both its content and its intended audience. A microcast isn’t thrown into the digital cosmos hoping someone will discover it and listen, it’s an audio blog post or journal entry designed and delivered to a specific recipient. Adam Lemmon and Matthew Carey, the creators of The Antipodes Podcast project (a microcast project), will share how microcasting has changed our perspective on telling better stories, and get some ideas for how you can explore microcasting yourself.
