Happy Women’s Day… and see you at SXSW 2023!

Tomorrow I’m taking a plane for an international flight… again. But before telling you more about this, let me wish a great “International Women’s Day” to all the wonderful women of our ecosystem! And also to all the women that are close to us men in XR and that support us every day :)… and that are close to us even if we always talk about technology and we like to wear luminous shoeboxes on our faces. I’m a big advocate for inclusion in our ecosystem and I’m glad to have collaborated over the years with many amazing women in our field… and I hope to collaborate with even more in the upcoming months.

In Italy, we gift the mimosa flower on this day. Usually, I post a picture of the flower to celebrate, but to make something different this year, let me post a picture of the eponymous cocktail mimosa to cheer for all the women of XR!

As I was saying before, tomorrow I will travel to the US. It’s going to be fun for my body going from China to Europe to the US in such a short time, but they say that what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger… which is a nice sentence, provided that its first part proves to be true 🙂 I’m going to the US to attend the SXSW in Austin, Texas. SXSW is an event about technology and creativity, that mixes people from the tech world (XR included) with people from music and cinema. It’s one of the largest tech events in the United States, so it is very cool to go there.

It is the second time I go to SXSW and last year it was one of the best experiences of my professional life: I had a lot of fun, I met many new friends, I did fantastic business for my company VRROOM, I ate some great BBQ… really, the best event ever. What I totally loved about the SXSW is this atmosphere of “happiness” and serendipity that floats around, and that makes everyone willing to meet new people and have fun. I remember that I couldn’t understand the difference between when I was having fun and when I was doing business PR. It was just me going around the corridors and meeting people, drinking terrible White Claw, trying new VR experiences, then partying during the evening… and even meeting Paris Hilton!

Last year was so perfect that I’m sure that this year can’t reach the same level. But whoever has gone to SXSW has always nice stories to tell, so I’m sure that this year I will live fantastic adventures again. And of course, I will let you know all of them. And… even better… why don’t you live them together with me?

I will be there from the 10th to 15th, and if you are there… well, let’s meet, and let’s talk about technology, business, and White Claws. You will recognize me because I will be one of the few people in a suit (I’m Italian, I have to show some style :P)

If you want you can also come and see the speech that my colleague Maud Clavier and I will give about the work we are doing at VRROOM in building a social VR platform for concerts and liveshows. It will be on March, 14th at 2.30 pm at the Fairmont Hotel, Manchester A room. As usual, I won’t do just a promotional speech or a fluff talk about the trillions of the metaverse coming in 5 to 10 years, but I will try to talk about lessons learned while doing some hard work. And at the end of the talk, of course, I will be open to speaking to whoever will be there! You can find more info about the speech at this link.

And there is even more! I’ve contributed to the virtual reality world of SXSW that you can find on VRChat. And the concert that we of VRROOM did on our new platform in January will be one of the selected “XR Experience Special Events”! We will do an encore of it, with a revisited version of its virtual FXs, so even if you have tried it before, you can re-live it and still see something new happening!

And… that’s it! I really can’t wait to see how my SXSW will be this year. But of one thing I’m sure: that it will be with you, and for this, it will already be amazing!