Excited to Talk SXSW 2018 to US Mayors
The Forrest Four-Cast: June 23, 2017
On Saturday, June 24, I will be giving a short presentation about SXSW 2018 at the 85th annual meeting of the US Conference of Mayors in Miami Beach.
My presentation will focus on the gathering of mayors that has become a part of March Magic in Austin. These mayors come to SXSW because they want to absorb all of the innovation and creativity that is generated by the event. March 2018 will mark the third year of this program.
2017 panels and presentations at SXSW featuring US mayors included “A City’s Pathway to Inclusion,” “America’s Mayors: Holding the Line,” “The American Housing Crisis: Can Data Help?,” “Disrupting Local Government Mayoral Meet Up,” “Fighting Crime with Data in the US and Abroad,” “Resiliency in the Face of Terrorism,” “Swiping Left on Civic Engagement,” and “Wireless Network Innovation: Smart City Foundation.”
2017 mayoral participants at SXSW included Tom Barrett (Milwaukee), Rosalynn Bliss (Grand Rapids, MI), Muriel Bowser (Washington DC), Jackie Biskupski (Salt Lake City), Mick Cornett (Oklahoma City), Buddy Dyer (Orlando), Greg Fischer (Louisville), Robert Garcia (Long Beach), Javier Gonzales (Santa Fe), Michael Hancock (Denver), Jim Kenney (Philadelphia), Mitch Landrieu (New Orleans), Sam Liccardo (San Jose), Kasim Reed (Atlanta), Denise Simmons (Cambridge, MA) and Greg Stanton (Phoenix).
Watch this five minute video to see some of the highlights of this mayoral program from 2017.
Mayor Steve Adler of Austin (pictured above) has been the driving force behind this program. SXSW has worked closely with Mayor Adler’s office on a number of initiatives, including the recent lawsuit against the State of Texas over the SB4 Sanctuary City law.
Whether you are a mayor or you just have a forward-thinking idea about the music, film or interactive industries, you should enter a speaking idea for March in Austin via the 2018 SXSW PanelPicker. This process opens on Monday, June 26 and closes on Friday, July 21.
Hugh Forrest tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often (but not always) cover technology-related trends. When not attempting to wordsmith or meditating, he serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW in Austin.
