SXSW Moments: Pete Buttigieg
The Forrest Four-Cast: April 13, 2019
Did you miss something at SXSW 2019? Want to relive the magic? Look to this space over the coming weeks for links to video and audio replays of some of the most incredible experiences from this year’s event.
Cities are the future. More than two-thirds of the world’s population will live in an urban area by 2050, according to the UN. But making a city thrive is an outsized challenge. As LBJ once said, “When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.”
Mayors are executives of government who are relied on to get stuff done and can’t afford to play political games or shut down their governments. Listen to Pete Buttigieg, who is expected to officially announce his run for the White House this weekend, on the SXSW panel “The City Hall Blueprint For Running the Country,” which provided clues to how a mayor could turn the success of running a city into a successful model for Washington.
He also spoke at SXSW at a presidential town hall, live streamed on CNN. Learn more about that here.
Buttigieg wasn’t the only one focusing on the city experience at SXSW.
Can Urban Acupuncture Make Cities More Resilient?
Cities are obviously political entities. But there are other ways of looking at them. Urban acupuncture treats the city as an organism, identifies where risk causes stress, and applies interventions for healing.The concept is used to tackle urban challenges like urbanization and climate change. Check out this discussion about urban acupuncture examples around the world: toxic tours in Mexico, seismic sensors in Los Angeles, green corridors in Singapore, and more.
Fighting Homelessness with Ethical Technology
Cities also generate unique social problems such as housing shortages. When building technology to fight homelessness, what considerations need to be central? How do ethics play into product design and software development? Panelists talked about their experience in government and the private sector working on this issue — identifying where tech can have the biggest impact, and involving homeless residents in the design process.
More Memories from SXSW 2019
Change is Coming
Urban Mobility
It’s Time for Sports!
Saving the Ocean
Military Matters
Women’s Health
Social Media Power
Telling New Media Stories
Motherhood
Marvel’s Magic
Future Health
May the Fourth
Women in Tech
Growing Unicorns
Thriving at Work
Making a Difference
Fighting Fake News
Disaster Response
Hacking Democracy
Kara Swisher
Arlan Hamilton
Do these audio recordings inspire you to get involved in a SXSW session next year? Enter your forward-thinking speaking proposal for March 2020 via the SXSW PanelPicker. Speaking proposals for next year’s event are accepted via this interface from July 1 through July 19.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
