Tech Under Trump Sessions for March 2017
The Forrest Four-Cast: December 14, 2016
At our best, the SXSW Conference helps provide the community a little more information and a lot more inspiration. These are the two basic goals of the new “Tech Under Trump” programming that is scheduled for Wednesday, March 15 and Thursday, March 16 in Austin. Sessions on these two days will seek to inform attendees on probable changes in the technology / startup landscape for the next few years. These sessions will also aim to inspire registrants on the best strategies to help heal the many divisions that the November 8 election helped to reveal.
The preliminary list of speakers for these two days of Trump-related panels and presentations include Patrick Curry (VR Austin), Anil Dash (Fog Creek), Melinda Epler (Change Catalyst), Ashish Gadnis (banquapp.com), Jeff Howe (author of “Whiplash”), Eli Pariser (Upworthy), Dave Pell (Next Draft; pictured above), Erin Schrode (Journalist and Activist), Wayne Sutton (Change Catalyst), and Molly Wood (MarketPlace). More speaker names and specific session titles will be announced shortly via the SXSW website.
Many of our best ideas for SXSW come via the global community of digital creatives. So please connect with me at hugh at sxsw dot com if you have ideas for this March 15–16 programming.
Also, there’s no small irony that we announced this “Tech Under Trump” programming on December 13, a day before the big meeting between the President Elect and various Silicon Valley CEOs. We are cautiously optimistic that this get-together can help lead to a more productive working relationship between the next administration and those whose innovations are pushing so much of the nation’s economic growth. But, we also expect that many issues will remain unresolved — which should provide for some very intriguing discussion points come March.
FEBRUARY 8 UPDATE: Click here to see the most current list of “Tech Under Trump” sessions for SXSW 2017.
Hugh Forrest tries to write four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts generally cover technology-related trends. When not attempting to wordsmith, he serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW in Austin.
