Vote for OTI's SXSW Panels

Every year, SXSW brings together creative and innovative minds to lead discussion on the technology, policy, communities, and ideas that will shape our digital future for SXSW Interactive.

At OTI, we work on issues like these daily, so it is should come as no surprise that this year we have submitted six diverse panels for SXSW Interactive 2016. However, in order to make these panels a reality we need your help!

Between now and Friday, September 4th, you can head to SXSW PanelPicker and cast your vote for which panels should make it to SXSW Interactive 2016. Our six panels will be competing against over 4,000 entries, so every vote counts!

Here is a brief overview of our submissions, compiled from PanelPicker, and direct links to vote for each panel:

The New Battle Over Encryption & How to Survive It

Strong encryption is taking over the tech landscape. Apple and Google are encrypting our smartphones, WhatsApp and iMessage have brought us easy-to-use end-to-end security, and more sites every day are encrypting our web connections. But this post-Snowden spread of encryption is facing a backlash, with some in government calling it a threat to law and order and pressing companies to build backdoors for surveillance. Come hear a top developer of secure apps, a major Internet company's policy expert, a national tech business reporter and a longtime privacy advocate talk about what this new "Crypto War" means for the future of innovation, cybersecurity, the tech economy, and your business.

The participants of this session include Moxie Marlinspike of Open Whisper Systems, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries of The Wall Street Journal, Heather West of CloudFlare, and OTI Director Kevin Bankston.

Click here to vote for this panel.

How to Fight ISIS Without Breaking the Internet

The Islamic State has mastered social media. Democracies are struggling to fight ISIS without violating core civil liberties. Politicians from Washington to Paris have proposed laws requiring tech companies to monitor users, report on apparent terrorist activity, and censor terrorism-related content. How should the tech community respond? How do Internet companies keep themselves from being a tool for terrorist recruitment and planning without censoring and surveilling users in ways that will also stifle journalism, activism, and heated policy debate? Our panelists debunk myths and offer alternative approaches and core principles on which to build solutions.

This panel will be moderated by Emma Llanso from the Center for Democracy and Technology, and the participants include Judith Lichtenberg of Global Network Initiative, Shahed Amanullah of LaunchPosse, Andrew McLaughlin of betaworks, and Rebecca MacKinnon of Ranking Digital Rights at New America.

Vote for this panel here.

Start a Nonprofit Without Tearing Your Hair Out

Have you ever thought about starting a nonprofit, but weren’t sure what it would require? What are the things you need to set up, what regulations do you need to know to get started? Do you need a board? What do you need to start fundraising? What can you do to build an inclusive organization that values diversity from the beginning? How do you build an organization that stays flexible as it grows? We are two nonprofit veterans who’ve worked behind the scenes for many years to make sure our organizations are strong, well-managed, and diverse. We will share the basics on how to get started and avoid common pitfalls.

This discussion will include OTI’s Chhaya Kapadia, Brooke Hunter of Engine, and Jesse von Doom of CASH Music.

You can click here to vote for this panel.

Rebel v. Empire: A People’s History of Civic Tech

Even after 8 years of use, millions of dollars of investment, & related policy reforms, people working at the intersection of tech & public good are still asking: what is civic tech? This panel, will explore what civic tech is by taking a look at what civic tech has been, illustrating the field’s history not just through its start-up-and-scale-obsessed present, but through its hereto unnamed and unclaimed activist past. We’ll dig into the civic tech blockchain, exploring roots in media justice, digital inclusion, and community tech, and examine how these tensions of these legacies impact the field’s future. If we are honest about what civic tech has been, can we shape what it will become?

Panelists for this discussion include Laurenellen McCann, OTI’s Civic Innovation Fellow, Noel Hidalgo of BetaNYC, and Cayden Mak of 18MillionRising.

To vote for this panel, click here.

Winter Is Coming: Copyright Chill on Security

What do cyborg tinkerers, unlocked iPhones, car hacking and entrepreneurial farmers have in common? The surprising answer: copyright law. Seventeen years after Congress first wrote the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and on the cusp of new rule-making about exemptions for section 1201 of the DMCA, our panel of legal experts will cover the history, review current updates, explore implications for hackers and tinkerers, and propose possible avenues for copyright reform necessary to curb the chilling effect of the criminal penalties in the Copyright Act over rightful innovation

This panel will include Laura Moy of OTI, Kyle Wiens of iFixit, Karen Sandler of Software Freedom Conservancy and Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Click here to vote for this panel.

Building Journalism and Civic Tech With Community

If civic tech and journalism are about creating a more just and equitable democracy, we need to reorient our work towards building with communities, not just for them. The future of civic work is not about investing in technology, it is about investing in community. This interactive panel is designed to address this gap, demonstrating through play and dialogue how journalism and technology practices can be reconfigured to work collaboratively with diverse publics. We’ll present case studies and community-driven strategies from sectors like public art, social justice organizing and design thinking.

Participants will include Josh Stearns of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Laurenellen McCann of OTI, Jennifer Brandel of Hearken and Sabrina Hersi Issa of Be Bold Media.

You can vote for this panel here.

We hope that you will find these ideas as interesting as we do, and that even if you won’t be in Austin in 2016, you can support OTI by participating in this forum. Voting only last until September 4th, so go vote and share it on twitter when you do!