SXSW on March 15: 17 Hidden Gems
The Forrest Four-Cast: March 14, 2019
Looking to fill some gaps in your SXSW schedule? Check out these fascinating discussions — all happening on Friday, March 15.
If you need a brain break from all the mind-blowing, saving the world content, stop by SXSW Gaming 2019, which opens on Friday, and have some pure, unadulterated fun. Free admission for all badgeholders.
Blockchain in Cannabis: Boosting Market Efficiency
Chain Business Insights co-founder Sherree DeCovny and California Cannabis Market CEO Jess Jessop discuss how blockchain can achieve operational efficiency and lead to normalization in the cannabis industry. Key topics include how the technology can improve track and trace capabilities, increase supply chain visibility and reduce friction, facilitate payment processing, enable regulatory compliance and enhance consumer protection.
11 am-noon, Hilton Austin Downtown
Revolutionizing Food Safety with Blockchain Tech
Disruptive technologies like blockchain can help companies enhance their capabilities to safely produce and distribute food globally, while increasing consumer confidence in our food ecosystem. Food industry leaders from the Institute of Food Technologists, Cargill, GS1 and Independent Purchasing Cooperative will discuss how blockchain technology will revolutionize traceability in our global food chain and change the future of food.
11 am-noon, Hilton Austin Downtown
Cannabis Start Up State of the Industry
The legal U.S. cannabis industry offers entrepreneurs once in a lifetime opportunities to launch, grow, and scale startups with generational wealth creation potential. But when the industry is off to the races, how do you figure out what the industry really needs? Join CanopyBoulder CEO and co-founder Patrick Rea, as he breaks down cannabis entrepreneurship and early stage investing.
11 am-noon, Hilton Austin Downtown
Featured Session: The Cannabis Renaissance: Science Validates Tradition
Steve DeAngelo, a globally recognized cannabis leader who has spent over four decades on the front lines of the cannabis reform movement, will trace the trajectory of cannabis from ancient medical text to modern lab, examine how modern science has validated the therapeutic uses cited in those texts, outline the overlooked wellness benefits of cannabis, offer official statistics showing cannabis could alleviate intractable social problems like intolerance, sexism, violence — and just might be the last, best chance to we have to save Planet Earth.
12:30–1:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
How Global Youth Collaboration Will Save the World
Global collaboration is rapidly becoming an integral part of school curriculum. This session will showcase the powerful videos, service projects, presentations, VR experiences, and other multimedia projects created by international student teams. We’ll discuss the implications for the wellbeing of our societies and our planet.
12:30-1:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
The Future of Marketing The Past
A discussion of new ways to approach marketing artists with long careers and significant catalogs. Streaming and social networks have changed the way fans engage with music and accelerated the journey between discovery and sales. How do artists, manager and labels make the most of this opportunity and foster deeper engagement with catalog?
12:30-1:30 pm, Austin Convention Center
The Politics of Punk in the Era of Trump
Right-wing media outlets have dubbed Donald Trump “The Punk Rock President” to validate his rule-breaking crudeness and appeal to white working-class rage. Judith Peraino, professor of music and director of LGBT Studies at Cornell University, will discuss the complex politics of punk songs, symbols, and representations of race and sexuality using archival materials from the Sex Pistols, the Germs, Crucifix, and Austin’s own MDC, among others, to show how punk history can be a tool for political conversation and engagement in the present.
12:30-1:30 pm, Austin Convention Center
Real Talk from the Early Days of Cannabis
Before the soaring stock prices and the copious media coverage, people were investing in and launching businesses that have shaped the path of the industry. Emily Paxhia and Tahira Rehmatullah will dig in with real talk about the early days of the modern cannabis business. This is a chance to hear what it was like at the beginning as a founder, as an investor, and as a woman.
12:30-1:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
Toys and Games of Today and The Future of Play
Within the SXSW Gaming Expo, hear from companies that are crafting the future of interactive play through immersive stories, augmented reality collectibles and the power of voice. What may have seemed like science fiction before is here today and incredibly fun to play.
1-2 pm, Austin Convention Center, Gaming Expo
Blockchains: How to Build Something People Want
In this fireside chat, Naveen Jain (YC alum, Sparkart founder) and Dan Teree (co-founder of Ticketfly and former Ticketmaster executive), two of the co-founders of the Tari protocol project, will talk about the aims of the project, some of the challenges they’ve encountered, and what users are saying about Big Neon, the game-changing new ticketing platform that is expected to be one of the first applications to make use of the Tari protocol.
3:30-4:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
Why VCs Have Joined the Block Party
Today, many entrepreneurs seeking funding to build blockchain startups have bypassed traditional VCs to fund their startups by selling tokens directly to investors. While it’s clear the tech ecosystem benefits from new funding methods, the panelists believe that while token offerings can be legitimate ways to finance startups, they aren’t for every company. Panelists will give their unique perspective on these offerings and why startups might consider both crypto and traditional financing mechanism to create tomorrow’s next billion dollar business.
3:30-4:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
The Token Economy: Digitizing Real-World Assets
Today, it takes one click to buy a concert ticket or a new pair of shoes, but if you want to buy stocks, get a mortgage, or pay someone in another country, the transactions are more time intensive. By representing physical assets and currency as digital assets on a distributed digital ledger or blockchain, it’s possible to unlock the value of real-world assets and to exchange them in real time. A steady progression of innovation can arise from a real-time, interconnected world with the potential to sequentially and substantially disrupt markets.
3:30-4:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
The Secret Sauce: Cannabis Marketing 3.0
The current schedule 1 status of cannabis legally limits the knowledge of cannabis medicine because of a lack of research. This means that everything from anecdotal evidence to sales trends are used to inform product development. Companies that are not willing to pivot and listen to evolving presences will lose. Learn about the massive opportunity for brands to own certain categories in the current research vacuum.
3:30-4:30 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
A Music Blockchain Use Case for Mycelia
At this session, learn how to create your own smart contract using Solidity, Superblocks IDE and the Ethereum blockchain. Part one is a walkthrough of developing Mycelia LIVEBITE. A one-year crypto experiment with Imogen Heap, testing a new way of funding music makers independently from record labels through smart contracts. It’s a specific use case for how Mycelia Creative Passport can create a new structure for music and disrupt the music industry. The second part is Superblocks connecting the dots to the music industry at large and teaching you how to showcase your future music blockchain prototype. You’ll finish with a surprise boost for your own ideas!
4:30-6 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
Crypto Crime: How to Steal Cryptocurrency
We think of Blockchain as synonymous with Security. Yet, every day we hear of another Crypto exchange being hacked, with eye-watering amounts of cryptocurrency stolen. This session will look at why this false perception exists and how cryptocurrency is not as secure as you might think. Complete with a live hacking demo of how you can steal cryptocurrency, we will show you the processes that can be used to protect crypto assets.
5-6 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
What the EU Copyright Directive Will do for Music in 2019
One controversial article of the EU directive on copyright about to be adopted aims at reshaping rules governing the liability of platforms: article 13. This session will focus on how article 13 is about to change the music industry.
5-6 pm, Austin Convention Center
Re-imagining Cannabis with Lab-Verified Data
Cannabis is complex. Consumers are overwhelmed by choice. It’s hard for stores to curate and recommend products. Doing this “right” requires accurate measurements of THC, CBD, and terpenes. Using data science, lab data, and machine intelligence, Leafly is re-imagining the legal cannabis shopping experience in exciting ways.
5-6 pm, Hilton Austin Downtown
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.
