Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx speaks about the Takata air bag inflator recall on May 19 at the Transportation Department in Washington. Foxx was announced as a speaker for SXSW Interactive 2016 on the subject of smart cities. Credit: Jacquelyn Martin / ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two days after closing its Panel Picker and a week before official registration opens, South by Southwest Interactive is giving a preview of its content and themes with a set of 12 featured speakers for the March 2016 festival.
On Tuesday, SXSW Interactive released the list as a preview of some of the trends it expects will be a big part of the festival, including diversity, virtual reality, hardware and smart cities.
Among the speakers listed are Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx, “The Happiness Project” author Gretchen Rubin and Maxine Williams, the global director of diversity for Facebook.
Here's the complete list from SXSW, including NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who was announced on Monday as part of SXSports.
Tracy Chou — Engineer at Pinterest quantifying tech's diversity issue
Alex Chung— CEO of Giphy spearheading a vast visual search engine and new tool for self-expression
Esteban Contreras— Director of Strategy at Sprinklr covering enterprise-level social media solutions
Secretary Anthony Foxx— US Secretary of Transportation accelerating smart city innovation
Ryan Hoover— Founder of Product Hunt defining what's cool in tech for investors and reporters
Guy Kawasaki— Chief Evangelist at Canva democratizing access to beautiful design
Josh Kushner— Founder of Thrive Capital and co-founder of Oscar disrupting healthcare through tech, data and design
Gretchen Rubin— Author of Better than Before on mastering the habits of our everyday lives
Douglas Rushkoff— Author of forthcoming book The Growth Trap revealing how the digital economy enslaves us all, and how it can still set us free
Adam Silver— Commissioner of the National Basketball Association discussing how one of the top professional sports leagues in the world continues to innovate and embrace change (SXsports)
Lila Tretikov— Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation working to preserve open source information
Amber Venz— President and Co-Founder of rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it revolutionizing fashion blogging
Maxine Williams— Global Director of Diversity for Facebook sharing how influencers and individuals can drive more diversity in tech
SXSW Interactive 2016 takes place March 11-15 with a Gaming component stretching the festival to the end of the next week.
