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Barack and Michelle Obama to address SXSW
By Andy Malt | Published on Thursday 3 March 2016
The First Lady of the United States Of America will give the opening keynote at this year’s SXSW Music conference. But what will her husband be doing? Well, he will be having a nice rest after giving the opening keynote at SXSW Interactive five days earlier.
Michelle Obama will be speaking about her Let Girls Learn initiative, which aims to help the 62 million girls around the world not in school to access education. The aim is to get the music industry to support this. The talk will take place on 16 Mar.
On 11 Mar, Barack Obama will sit down with The Texas Tribune Editor-in-chief Evan Smith to chat about civic engagement in the 21st century. He’ll apparently focus in particular on how tech makers could be addressing challenges like increasing participation in the political process and fighting climate change.
“I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate our event’s 30th year than to welcome both the President and First Lady to SXSW”, says the event’s co-founder Roland Swenson. “As each new generation comes up at SXSW they look for ways they can be of service, and it’s important to reflect and support that message. President and Mrs Obama’s visit here will inspire attendees to that purpose”.
Meanwhile, at SXSW 2017, I look forward to President Donald Trump in conversation with Lady Gaga.