Joe Biden is bringing his cancer crusade to SXSW
Joe Biden may be finished generating White House memes, but he's not done making a difference.
The former vice president will speak at the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, on March 12 at 3:30 PM, where he'll reflect on on the Cancer Moonshot he started while still in the White House.
Last year, Biden, whose son, Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, said that he would dedicate his the rest of his career to the fight against cancer. At SXSW in the Austin Convention Center, Biden will deliver on that promise by outlining his plans for the new Biden Cancer Initiative.
"We’re excited to have Vice President Biden address the creative innovators and entrepreneurs that attend SXSW,” said Hugh Forrest, SXSW's chief programming officer, in a release.
Biden, who served as VP for 8 years and in the U.S. Senate for 36 years, will speak during the Interactive portion of the 10-day-long SXSW conference, when entrepreneurs, startups and innovators converge to demonstrate their new products and talk about how technology is changing our world. His talk will be part of SXSW's Connect to End Cancer Series. Biden will call on those innovators to help him find smart solutions to surmount some of cancer research's biggest hurdles.
The former Veep, who recently got a new job as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, will speak one year after his best bud, President Barack Obama spoke before a packed SXSW auditorium. One can only hope the duo will reunite on stage at a future SXSW event.
Biden's appearance is also notable because of the Trump administration's almost complete lack of visibility at SXSW, aside from FBI Director James Comey (whose department does report into the Executive branch) who will be on stage on March 13. He signed on, though, before Trump asked him to continue as FBI Director.
Show organizers have confirmed to Mashable that no one else from the Trump White House is attending the event in an official capacity.
That means the field is wide open for the former Uncle-in-Chief to spawn a whole new collection of memes at what may be the best meme-generation location place on earth.
[Update 11:47 AM ET: An earlier version of this story inaccurately stated that no one from the Trump administration would attend SXSW in an official capacity. We regret the error.]
Lance Ulanoff was Chief Correspondent and Editor-at-Large of Mashable. Lance acted as a senior member of the editing team, with a focus on defining internal and curated opinion content. He also helped develop staff-wide alternative story-telling skills and implementation of social media tools during live events. Prior to joining Mashable in September 2011 Lance Ulanoff served as Editor in Chief of PCMag.com and Senior Vice President of Content for the Ziff Davis, Inc. While there, he guided the brand to a 100% digital existence and oversaw content strategy for all of Ziff Davis’ Web sites. His long-running column on PCMag.com earned him a Bronze award from the ASBPE. Winmag.com, HomePC.com and PCMag.com were all been honored under Lance’s guidance.He makes frequent appearances on national, international, and local news programs including Fox News, the Today Show, Good Morning America, Kelly and Michael, CNBC, CNN and the BBC.He has also offered commentary on National Public Radio and been interviewed by newspapers and radio stations around the country. Lance has been an invited guest speaker at numerous technology conferences including SXSW, Think Mobile, CEA Line Shows, Digital Life, RoboBusiness, RoboNexus, Business Foresight and Digital Media Wire’s Games and Mobile Forum.
