Unofficial Guide to South By Southwest 2013

Lauded as the Henry Ford of this generation, Musk is the CEO and chief designer at SpaceX, where he overssees development of rockets and spacecraft for missions to Earth orbit and ultimately to other planets. In 2008, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft won the NASA contract to provide a commercial replacement for the cargo transport function of the Space Shuttle, which retired in 2011. SpaceX has gained worldwide attention for a series of historic milestones. It is the only private company ever to return a spacecraft from low-earth orbit, which it accomplished in December 2010. In 2012, SpaceX became the first commercial company to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station – a feat it did twice in one year. SpaceX is currently modifying its Dragon spacecraft to carry astronauts to and from the station as well.
At Tesla, Musk has overseen product development and design from the beginning, including the all electric Tesla Roadster, Model S and Model X. Transitioning to a sustainable energy economy, in which electric vehicles play a pivotal role, has been one of his central interests for almost two decades, stemming from his time as a physics student working on ultracapacitors in Silicon Valley. 
Additionally, Musk is the non-executive chairman and principal shareholder of SolarCity, which he helped create. SolarCity is now the leading provider of solar power systems in the United States.
Prior to SpaceX, Musk co-founded PayPal, the world's leading Internet payment system, and served as the company's Chairman and CEO. Before PayPal, he co-founded Zip2, a provider of Internet software to the media industry.
Fans of the movie Iron Man will remember that the Tony Stark character played by Robert Downey Jr is patterned after this dynamic South African entrepreneur.
At SXSW 2013, Musk will be interviewed by Chris Anderson. Author of "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More," he held the position of editor-of-chief at Wired from 2001 until 2012. Anderson currently serves as co-founder and chairman of 3DRobotics, a robotic manufacturing company. Catch his panel "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Drone" on Sunday, March 10 at 3:30 at the Omni.
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Tina Roth Eisenberg grew up in mountainous Switzerland, influenced by renowned Swiss design and a lot of fresh air. She is often referred to as "swissmiss," her popular design blog, which she runs out of Brooklyn, broadcasting with a European viewpoint and a love for clean, Swiss functional design. Swiss-miss.com has a growing audience of 1.3 million monthly unique readers from all over the world and was selected by The Times as one of the world's Top 50 design blogs.
She also runs a Brooklyn-based collaborative workspace called Studiomates, organizes a monthly lecture series called CreativeMornings, is the inventor of the popular to-do app called TeuxDeux and is the force behind the temporary tattoo shop Tattly.
She will share passion and knowledge from her diverse business experience, and how taking your side projects seriously will lead to your success.
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Indie developers and open source principles provide the power and the passion for the SXSW Interactive Festival. With this core value of community collaboration in mind, we are very pleased to announce that game industry veteran Julie Uhrman, founder and CEO of OUYA, will participate in a keynote interview on Monday at 2:00pm in Exhibit Hall 5.
Much more than a record-breaking Kickstarter darling, OUYA is the $99 free-to-play game console built on Android and designed by Yves Behar. It is slated for release in March 2013.
Interviewing Uhrman will be Joshua Topolsky, co-founder and founding editor in chief of the technology news network The Verge. Before launching The Verge in 2011, Topolsky was the editor in chief at Engadget. He regularly appears as the technology correspondent for NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
This keynote will no doubt spark an inspiring dialogue about the real-world challenges of crowdfunding, how open source approaches are disrupting traditional markets and how you can find startup success by daring to follow your dreams.
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One of the core missions of the SXSW Interactive Festival is to showcase those who use their creativity and artistic talent to make the world a better place. With this ideal in mind, we are excited to have Matthew Inman as our Tuesday keynote at 2:00pm in Exhibit Hall 5.
Matthew Inman is the artist and best-selling author behind the comedy website known as The Oatmeal. Inman championed two successful crowdfunding campaigns in 2012, including "Operation BearLove Good. Cancer Bad" where he turned a lawsuit on its head by raising over $200,000 for charity instead of paying $20,000 in damages to a rival website. In addition, he generated over $1M in nine days to try to buy the laboratory formerly owned by Nikola Tesla, a turn-of-the-century engineer who many consider a geek hero. Matthew lives in Seattle and really, really likes Sriracha rooster sauce.
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