While most people think about hashtags, marketing stunts and SoLoMo when they hear about the Interactive part of SXSW in Austin, this year is going to be a bit different as President Barack Obama is about to give a keynote. The event should start at 2:40 PM in Austin (3:40 PM ET, 12:40 PM PT, 8:40 PM GMT).
We have a live team on the ground waiting for the president as we speak — Obama is eating tacos right now. Our team is going to cover all the important updates in Obama’s speech and give you commentary. According to The New York Times, Obama wants to tell attendees that technology can be used to solve some of the country’s issues, such as voter turnout and civic engagement.
Silicon Valley executives have been key fundraising partners when it comes to Obama’s presidential campaigns. Since then, he’s regularly met tech CEOs over his two mandates. But the FBI (with the support of the government) is also fighting against Apple right now in the San Bernardino case. It’s going to be interesting to get his take on this issue.
You can check it out live via the White House’s official stream above, and stay tuned on TechCrunch.com for ongoing coverage of all the news coming out of SXSW.