The first weekend of South by Southwest has come and gone, but there are still plenty of conferences and interactive exhibits to attend Monday.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The first weekend of South by Southwest has come and gone, but there are still plenty of conferences and interactive exhibits to attend Monday.
Celine Tricart, the head of Lucid Dreams Productions, is "an acclaimed storyteller who has developed a unique style involving highly emotional stories and strong visual artistry," according to the SXSW website. She's Monday's keynote speaker.
Tricart co-directed and produced the virtual reality experience "Sun Ladies," which followed women Yazidi fighting ISIS forces in Iraq. She traveled through ISIS-controlled territory to meet the women soldiers at the Iraq-Syria border. The film was selected for more than 70 international festivals.
Tricart delivers Monday's keynote speech at 1 p.m. from Ballroom D at the Austin Convention Center. It will also be available online.
Here are some of Monday's events you don't want to miss:
The former product manager of Facebook who spilled secrets of the social media giant shares "lessons from her time" at the company. She'll talk about "the false choices around content moderation, censorship, fact checking and A.I. that Facebook claim will keep us safe."
Dr. Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and CEO, is joined by Yahoo! Finance's Julie Hyman about how the company developed the life-saving vaccine in record time. It will also get into themes from Bourla's new book, Moonshot. If you miss it in person, it will be available online.
Jonathan Van Ness, the Emmy-nominated TV personality, New York Times best-selling author, podcaster and hairstylist talks about his new hair care line of products, JVN, that use "synthetic biotechnology company and bio manufacturer of clean, sustainable, natural ingredients." One of the "Queer Eye" mainstays, Van Ness will also be joined by ALOK, an internationally acclaimed writer, performer, and public speaker.
The online conference features Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks founder and self-proclaimed "digital idiot," Hari Ravichandran of AURA, a cybersecurity innovator, and Rachel Tobac of Socialproof Security, a hacker. The online discussions tried to unpack how hackers steal your information, what they use it for and how we can use technology to "put consumers ahead of the cybercriminals for the first time in history."
Peter McIndoe, the creator of the satirical "Birds Aren't Real" movement that playfully claims birds are actually robots use by the government as surveillance cameras, chats about his endeavor and tries to answer the question, "What do people see in something like Birds Aren’t Real and what can be accomplished when these people come together?"
MSNBC's Zach Stafford will join him for the discussion.
Storytelling can affect brain chemistry and make people want to do something. Film director Joanne Popinska, Ph.D., is joined by Rep. Donna Howard, activist Aimee Arranide and Kristen Herring, the subject of the virtual reality experience "The Choice," will talk about how intimate storytelling can influence cultural policy change.
