South by Southwest announced Melinda Gates, Trinity ‘86 and Fuqua ‘87, as the Convergence Keynote speaker for its 2018 lineup.
In its 25th year, the conference is set to focus on technology and culture as part of its second unified conference featuring Interactive, Film, Music and Convergence Tracks. SXSW cited Gates’ philanthropy and focus on female empowerment as a theme relevant in 2018 and to the festival.
“Her participation in SXSW highlights the message that creative industry professionals have a duty to give back to the global community,” said Hugh Forest, chief programming officer of SXSW, in the announcement Monday.
In 2015, Gates established Pivotal Ventures, a new organization dedicated to bringing more women into computer science—the field that Gates pursued during her time at Duke. As part of the initiative, Gates has worked on making introductory computer science courses more welcoming to women with the hope of ultimately encouraging more female leadership in tech.
Other featured speakers this year include French film-writer and director Oliver Assayas, founder and CEO of Dell Technologies Michael Dell, Thom Zimny and Priscilla Presley—director and producer of the HBO documentary Elvis Presley: The Searcher—former U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith and designer and entrepreneur Rachel Zoe.
Gates joins the cohort of past SXSW Convergence Keynotes including Lyor Cohen, Darren Aronofsky, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Barry Jenkins, Sadiq Khan, Esther Perel and whurley.
The 2018 SXSW Conference & Festivals will take place March 9-18 in Austin, Texas.
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