Obama's keynote speech at SXSW (Austin) [View all]

[Lodestar]

President Barack Obama is kicking off the first day of the South by Southwest festival in Austin, TX, with a talk focusing on the role that technology should play in civic life. The president is making his first appearance at the festival, and will use the occasion to call for using technology to improve customer service inside the government, according to the New York Times. As the Times notes, Obama has made a point of embracing the tech community, regularly attending fund-raisers in Silicon Valley and inviting tech leaders to the White House.