These DC-area orgs are looking for your vote to secure SXSW panels

Are you ready for South by Southwest 2020?

Even though SXSW is months away, panels are being secured now and these D.C.- area organizations need your support.

SXSW 2020 kicks off March 13 in Austin and will run throughout the week with a full slate of panels, education sessions, networking events and parties. Supporters can go to SXSW’s PanelPicker to “vote up” on panel topics ranging from tech employment to education, leveraging tech in the government and more. Voting closes on Friday, Aug. 23.

ByteBack is up for two panels — one for SXSW and another for SXSW EDU. The SWSW panel up for voting, titled “An Inclusive Tech Workforce,” would discuss how the intersection of private sector and community-based tech training creates opportunities for underrepresented groups. The SXSW EDU panel titled “Access and Education for Universal AI Success” would offer business and socioeconomic perspective to address the most pressing reskilling challenges and opportunities, and how we prepare for the automation-first era.

“For a nonprofit like Byte Back, the connections we can make at SXSW are really invaluable,” Yvette Scorse, ByteBack’s communications director, told Technical.ly. “It’s a great opportunity to build relationships across sectors so we can all work together — to increase inclusion in tech and find solutions to increase diversity. In the panels we’re proposing for 2020, we’re really pushing ourselves to look at the future of work and new technology and how these can be opportunities, not detriments, for people who are usually left out of tech.”

This wouldn’t be the tech inclusive nonprofit’s first SXSW appearance. ByteBack Executive Director Elizabeth Lindsey spoke for the first time at SXSW in 2018, leading the “Reinventing Pathways to Tech Diversity” panel with nonprofit, public, and corporate entities who partnered to build a training pathway for left-out communities to enter careers in tech. She also did a talk at SXSW EDU in 2018 titled “Breaking Tech Teaching Norms.”

Though there are many, here’s a roundup of five other D.C.-area panels looking to gain votes for SXSW 2020 (with descriptions from PanelPicker):

• How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Hacker — Organized by Beau Woods, cyber safety advocate at I Am The Cavalry, this panel of hackers and public policy leaders will break down what it’s like to be leading the way, why, how, and where we’ve been successful — and what more is needed.
• Taking A Bite Out Of Food Access In The District — This panel will talk about efforts like Lyft’s D.C. initiative that provides subsidized rides to low-income residents and partnerships between health insurance providers and grocers like Giant. Panelists include Kate Glantz, senior manager of social impact at Lyft, Ona Balkus, D.C. food policy director at the Office of the Mayor DC; Kim R. Ford, president and CEO of Martha’s Table; and Lauren Shweder Biel, executive director of DC Greens.
• Tech Procurement: Enabling Smart Governance in DC — Organized by Devin Zitelman, director of strategic initiatives for Washington DC Economic Partnership, this panel will discuss how IT experts and business owners are bringing the talent, knowledge and innovative technology solutions to government, enabling a smarter D.C. and providing best-practices for cities across the country to address complex challenges.
• Beyond the Books: DC’s Libraries Foster Innovation — A panel of experts will discuss how libraries are fostering dialogue, technology education, skills development, and entrepreneurship, while empowering all people to actively participate in an innovative ecosystem.
• Police Oversight in an Era of Tech & Polarization — This discussion will look at the role of tech in police oversight with cases from Austin and Washington, D.C. specifically. Experts will share evidence-based recommendations for building trust with the public and the officers who serve to protect them.

Check out all of panel sessions up for voting here.