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SXSW announced last week its latest round of speakers for its festival and conference next March.
Keynote speaker:
- Darren Aronofsky (Film Keynote) – Brooklyn born and raised, Academy Award-nominated director Darren Aronofsky is the founder of Protozoa Pictures. He is the writer and director of “mother!.” Last year, Aronofsky produced “Jackie.” Before that he directed the indie box office phenomenon, “Black Swan” (2010). Aronofsky directed and produced “The Wrestler” (2008).
Featured speakers:
- Luvvie Ajayi (Social Impact) – Luvvie Ajayi is a New York Times best-selling author, speaker and digital strategist who thrives at the intersection of comedy, technology and activism. A fourteen-year blogging veteran, she is the voice behind “Awesomely Luvvie,” a widely-respected humor blog that covers everything pop culture – from TV, movies and technology to travel, race and life’s random adventures.
- Steve Ballmer (Startup & Tech Sectors) – Steve Ballmer is co-founder of Ballmer Group and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Ballmer retired as Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft in 2014 after leading the company for nearly 14 years. Through philanthropy and civic activism, Ballmer Group strengthens promising and proven approaches that increase economic mobility for children and families in the United States. Ballmer also leads USAFacts, a project seeking to improve transparency in government.
- W. Kamau Bell (Social Impact) – W. Kamau Bell is a sociopolitical comedian based in The People’s Republic of Berkeley, Calif. Bell is the host of the Emmy Award-winning CNN original series “United Shades of America with W. Kamau Bell.” The series also received an Emmy and a Television Critics Association Award nomination in its first season. The third season will premiere in 2018 on CNN.
- Stefan Blom with Josh Constine (Sync, Stream & License) – Stefan Blom is Chief Content Officer at Spotify. He has responsibility for the company’s content and distribution operations, including all licensing, programming, studios & original content, industry & creators relationships and products globally. Josh Constine is the Editor-At-Large for TechCrunch where he specializes in deep analysis of social products.
- Sandy Carter (Startup & Tech Sectors) – Sandy Carter is an AWS VP focused on Enterprise Workloads and helping companies with innovation. A leading pioneer in the digital business revolution, Sandy was a driving force of Innovation at IBM for the last decade. She is an extreme innovator and bestselling author with her 5th book “Extreme Innovation,” built on her research with Carnegie Mellon.
- Ana Marie Cox and Bree Newsome (Social Impact) – Ana Marie Cox is a political columnist and culture critic. She conducts the “Talk” interviews featured in The New York Times Magazine. She also hosts “With Friends Like These,” a podcast from Crooked Media. Bree Newsome is a community organizer and activist who removed the Confederate battle flag from the South Carolina State House. Newsome rallies the spirit with her impassioned message about racial equality and illustrates how, with courage, zeal and the support of others, ordinary people can make an extraordinary difference.
- Ira Glass (News & Journalism) – Ira Glass is the host and creator of the radio program and podcast “This American Life.” The show is heard each week by over 2.2 million listeners on more than 500 public radio stations in the United States, Australia and Canada, with another 2.5 million listening to the podcast. Under Glass’s editorial direction, the podcast has won the highest honors for broadcasting and journalistic excellence, including five Peabody awards.
- Tristan Harris (Design) – Tristan Harris was previously a Design Ethicist at Google and left to lead Time Well Spent, a non-profit movement to align technology with our humanity. Time Well Spent aims to transform the race for attention by revealing how technology steers two billion people’s thoughts and choices, and by demonstrating how new incentives and design practices can transform our technology environment to align with our best interests.
- Hugh Herr, Aimee Mullins, and Professor Hans Georg Näder (Intelligent Future) – Time Magazine coined Dr. Hugh Herr the “Leader of the Bionic Age” because of his revolutionary work in the emerging field of Biomechatronics – technology that marries human physiology with electromechanics. Athlete and model Aimee Mullins became the first amputee in history to compete in the NCAA and was the first person ever to be outfitted with woven carbon fiber sprinting prostheses. Hans-Georg Naeder heads one of Germany’s largest orthopedic device makers, Otto Bock Group. The family business has worked with the Paralympics since 1988, producing hockey sledges and custom prosthetics for skiers, snowboarders and sprinters.
- Yiying Lu (Design) – Yiying Lu was born in Shanghai China, Educated in Sydney Australia & London UK, now based in San Francisco Silicon Valley as a Creative Director. She is an award-winning artist and designer with more than 10 years of experience in the creative realm. Lu was named a “Top 10 Emerging Leader in Innovation” in the Microsoft Next 100 series.
- David Marcus (Intelligent Future) – David Marcus is the Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook responsible for Messenger, which is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world daily.
- Bruce Mau (Design) – Bruce Mau is a brilliantly creative optimist whose love of thorny problems led him to create a methodology for whole system transformation. Twenty-five years in the business of design gave Bruce the practical, holistic insights for going into the design of business with his Massive Change Network five years ago.
- Daniel H. Pink (Workplace) – Daniel H. Pink is the author of several books about management, work and behavioral science, including The New York Times bestsellers “Drive,” “To Sell is Human,” and “A Whole New Mind.” His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into 35 languages.
- Brian Solis (Brands & Marketing) – Brian Solis is Principal Analyst and Futurist at Altimeter, the digital analyst group at Prophet and has been called one of the greatest digital analysts of our time by CMOs and CEOs of top brands. Additionally, Solis is an award-winning author of seven best-selling books including X: The Experience When Business Meets Design, What’s the Future of Business (WTF), and The End of Business as Usual.
- Roy Spence (Workplace) – Roy Spence is the chairman and co-founder of the advertising agency GSD&M and author of the books “The Amazing Faith of Texas” and “It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For: Why Every Extraordinary Business Is Driven By Purpose.” Spence is also Co-Founder and CEO of The Purpose Institute which helps organizations and leaders discover and fulfill their purpose.
- Keith Urban (Music Culture & Stories) – Keith Urban is a premier songwriter, vocalist, musician and virtuoso guitarist. Over the course of his career, Urban has earned four Grammy Awards, ten Country Music Association Awards, eleven Academy of Country Music Awards, a People’s Choice and an American Music Award.
- Lawrence Wright (Government) – Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of nine award-winning books of nonfiction. His latest book, “God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State,” will be released in spring 2018.
Click here for registration information. SXSW 2018 will take place March 9-18, 2018, so mark your calendars!
More announcements will come this fall and next spring. Stay updated on our Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.