South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference and Festivals will take place March 10-19, 2017. SXSW is known for featuring speakers who are leaders in the tech, film, television, business, literature, government and journalism fields.
Meet some of their planned Featured Speakers for the 2017 event including Game of Thrones co-creators and showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss , CNN political commentator Van Jones, organizational author Marie “KonMarie” Kondo, futurist Ray Kurzweil, SoulCycle CEO Melanie Whelan and more.
Vice President Biden will outline his plans for a Biden cancer initiative, calling on attendees at SXSW to join him in taking on the disease. In his remarks, he will reflect on the progress made under his leadership of the White House Cancer Moonshot; call for innovative solutions to tackle the barriers that prevent faster gains in ending cancer as we know it; and describe how he plans to remain in the fight.
New for 2017, the Interactive, Film, and Music badges will now include expanded access to more of the SXSW Conference & Festivals experience. Attendees will still receive primary entry to programming associated with their badge type but now also enjoy secondary access to most other SXSW events.SXSW Conference programming is organized into 24 Tracks divided between Interactive, Film, Music, and Convergence, presented in a variety of session formats.Featured SpeakersSteve Case and Beth Comstock (Startup Village) – Steve Case is America's best-known and most accomplished entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of AOL and CEO of Revolution. Beth Comstock is Vice Chairman at GE.
In this capacity, she leads GE’s efforts to accelerate new growth.Tom Cwik, Maggie Malone, Steve May, and Vick Schutz (Entertainment Influencers) – Tom Cwik leads Space Technology development at JPL, initiating and maintaining the Laboratories long-term tech strategy. Maggie Malone is the Head of Creative Affairs at the Walt Disney Animation Studios, where she has worked on s uch films as Zootopia, and F rozen. Steve May is the Chief Technology Officer at PIXAR, overseeing the development of visual effects tools and processes for the entire studio. Vick Schutz is the Computer Graphics Supervisor at ILM, where he com pleted work on film s such as A vatar, War of the Worlds, and more.
David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (Entertainment Influencers) – David Benioff works as an author and screenwriter. D.B. Weiss i s a writer and the author of Lucky Wander Boy. Both Benioff and Weiss co-creators and executive producers of the Emmy Award-winning G ame of Thrones for HBO.Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro and Dr. Ryuichiro Higashinaka ( Intelligent Future) – Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro is director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory, part of the Department of Systems Innovation in the Graduate School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Japan. Dr. Ryuichiro Higashinaka is a Senior Research Scientist at the Audio, Speech, and Language Media Laboratory, a part of the NTT Media Intelligence Laboratories.
Van Jones (Government) – Van Jones is an author, CNN political commentator, and host of T he Messy Truth with Van Jones on CNN. Jones worked as the green jobs advisor to President Barack Obama, and has founded and led four not-for-profit organizations engaged in social and environmental justice.Marie "KonMari" Kondo (Design) – Marie “KonMari” Kondo is a Japanese organizing consultant, author and visionary entrepreneur. Kondo has captured the findings from her lifelong journey of organization as the best-selling author of T he Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up.Ray Kurzweil and Amy Kurzweil (Tech Industry) – Ray Kurzweil is one of the world’s leading inventors, thinkers, and futurists. He is co-founder and Chancellor of Singularity University and a Director of Engineering at Google. Amy Kurzweil is a cartoonist and writer whose comics have appeared in The New Yorker and The Huffington Post. She teaches writing and comics at Parsons The New School for Design and at the Fashion Institute of Technology.Wagner Moura and Alice Braga with John Hopewell ( Entertainment Influencers) – Golden Globe Nominee actor Wagner Moura (N arcos, Netflix) and actress Alice Braga ( Queen of the South, USA Network), two Brazilian artists, discuss diversity in Hollywood alongside Variety reporter John Hopewell, as both star in cutting-edge, prime-time drama series in the United States — with Latin American protagonists.Casey Neistat (Journalism) – Casey Neistat is a YouTube creator with over 1.3 billion views, a filmmaker and a technology entrepreneur. In November 2016 he became part of CNN Worldwide, where he is currently building an entirely new stand-alone media and technology company that combines CNN's global resources with a fresh approach to the news.Gen. Paul J. Selva (Government) – G eneral Selva serves as the 10th Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In this capacity, he is the nation’s second highest-ranking military officer.
Selva was recently featured on the 60 Minutes segment “The Coming Swarm,” which addressed autonomous drones.Melanie Whelan, Tyler Haney with Julia Boorstin (Health) – Melanie Whelan is the CEO of SoulCycle, the country's premier indoor cycling brand. Tyler Haney is the Founder and CEO of active lifestyle brand Outdoor Voices. Julia Boorstin is the Senior Media and Entertainment Correspondent for CNBC.Explore the full list of previously announced K eynotes and Featured Speakers , as well as the full list of Conference programming on the o nline schedule.SXSW dedicates itself to helping creative people achieve their goals.
SXSW 2017 is sponsored by Esurance, Mazda, Monster Energy, Bud Light, Capital One, McDonald’s, The Austin Chronicle, and Sonicbids.
