Today started off with Hugh Forrest, the Chief Programming Officer of SXSW, welcoming everyone to SXSW. This was the official first day, and it was full of various things to do across the entire city. His opening remarks included some housekeeping items, like safety regulations and reporting any suspicious activity you see at the festival. He promoted a couple of other SXSW events that cater to new attendees, and welcomed the first speaker of Ballroom D, Josephine Goube.
Josephine Goube held a panel called “Let’s Tech the Borders Down.” She is the CEO of Techfugees, a non-profit that aims to “empower the displaced with technology.” Being from France, Goube got to experience first hand how migrants were treated in different areas of Europe. Goube became troubled by what she was seeing from her hometown and home country, so she set out to make a change with Techfugees.
“We need to take the power of words and images, and make it positive.” – Josephine Goube
Goube states that the single most important thing to give to refugees is information. The majority of them have smart phones and careers that they had to leave behind when they were displaced. Any sort of information they can get ahold of to help them better their situation could be key in changing their situation for the better. “These people are doctors, lawyers, and engineers. This is talent waiting to be recognized. We came here to help the community, and the community took over,” Goube said. Technology disrupts the lives of everyone; that’s what it’s made to do. With Techfugees, Goube wants to ensure that “everyone” really means everyone. Without things like travel limitations due to birth countries and an open border policy, resources would be better allocated and countries could start to succeed.
At 12:30pm in the Austin Convention Center, the line at Ballroom D wrapped around the building as far as the eye could see. Fellow Austinites as well as attendees from around the world anxiously awaited Jake Tapper’s talk with the beloved Bernie Sanders. With a few jokes in between serious topics, the crowd was ecstatic to hear a politician who shared the same views as them. The energy in the room was very positive, geared towards working together to make real change happen.
“Issue after issue, the truth is the American people are by and large not divided.” -Bernie Sanders
Sanders’ stance on current issues can be summarized as such: he is against deregulation of banks, he supports DACA and a path to citizenship for those whose parents brought them here as children, he agrees with stronger background checks and doing away with gun show loopholes that avoid background checks, and that we as voters need to get more involved with the political process more than ever before. Sanders delivered a powerful message about uniting under the same ideals, that he claims the majority of Americans already agree with. Throughout the whole talk, this was his focus..instead of dividing, Sanders wants to unite.
Finally, I got to explore the beauty of the brand new Austin Fairmont Hotel to attend a panel entitled, “The Future is Garbage: 3D Printing From Recycled Plastic.” CEO of Re:3D Samantha Snabes held a great panel session that included solutions to cutting down on plastic waste. Her company invented a 3D printer that is larger, yet more cost effective, than other 3D printers on the market right now, called Gigabot. Their hope with this printer is to greatly reduce the amount of plastic waste not only in developed countries like the United State and the United Kingdom, but to also bring these opportunities to developing countries who may not already have the necessary resources needed to make these solutions possible. To read more about this panel, check out my interview with Samantha Snabes.
