Introducing the Short Talks Stage in the SXSW Sydney Conference

October 2, 2024

This year we’re excited to launch the Short Talks Stage — SXSW Sydney’s hub for concise and impactful ideas.  

The Short Talks Stage is a new feature at this year’s SXSW Sydney Conference, curated to provide a dynamic exchange of ideas, with speakers presenting brief, powerful and inspiring talks on topics across the 23 tracks.

Grouped into similar ideas and conversations, these short talks will last either 15 or 30 minutes each and provide you the perfect opportunity to take a chance on something new, fill in a gap in your schedule, or getting industry-leading thoughts into your day as possible.

The Short Talks stage will be situated in the Exhibition side of the International Convention Centre and will be presented by a hand-picked cohort of emerging presenters include:  

Caris Bizacca, Lee Constable, Harry Jun, AJ Lamarque, Adrian Phoon, Alice Tovey.  

Check out the full schedule online but here’s what’s programmed so far:


Monday 14th October

  • Shaping the Future: The Crucial Role of Gender Diversity in AI’s Success
    With Kim Oosthuizen
  • Going Vertical to Solve the Burial Space Crisis
    With Andrew Hoyne
  • The Agentic Revolution
    With Daniel Palmer
  • Normalising Blackness in Australia - True representation on our screens, stages and pages
    With Simone Smith
  • Marketing ZEN: Bringing Humanity Back into Your Business  
    With Shinji Tanaka
  • Using AI to tackle ear disease in rural and remote Indigenous Australian children  

Tuesday 15th October

  • A Tale of Two Carbon Markets
    With Roger Cohen
  • You can’t solve the climate crisis until you solve the plastics crisis
    With Paul Riley
  • Tokenising Redemption: Confronting the Internet’s Original Sin
    With Mark Monfort, Amy-Rose Goodey, Kate Cooper & Rob Allen
  • Restoring Traditional Country with AI Tech and Aerial Data
    With Jamie Woods, Vera Rullens, Mike Roache & M’Shenda Turner
  • Employee Equity Ownership Awareness Session
    With Jax Liu
  • Would you hire someone with a criminal record?
    With Cameron Smith
  • Powering Up Pacific Tech - Responding to a broken system
    With Muliagatele Danny Leaoasava’ii &Jerome Mika
  • New technologies fostering community-driven, governed and managed First Language revitalisation, maintenance and teaching
    With Eric Brace, Tom Calma & Glenise Coulthard
  • Embracing Audacity VS Seeking Permission: A Business Case for Ignoring Conventional Wisdom
    With Aidan Anderson
  • Inclusive Futures: LGBTQIA+ Inclusion in Tomorrow’s Workforce

Wednesday 16th October

  • Making Good Media: Fostering Positive Climate Action through Irresistible Speculative Design
    With Rebecca Green
  • Can we double pet life spans by 2050? - A vision for healthier, longer-living companions
    With Matthew Muir
  • How South Korean Tech Ecosystem is evolving?
    With Philip Lee
  • Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Steam Age - Now Fusion Age? How Fusion Energy Will Begin a New Fundamental Era
    With Lenka Kollar
  • Cyber Security: Do you have what it takes to be a hacker / cyber-criminal?
    With Richard Buckland
  • The digital race: giving vulnerable communities a leg up
    With Rick Iversen, Jason-Urranndulla Davis, Margo Stephen & Brad Carr
  • Age Against the Machine
    With Melissa Doyle & Naima Brown
  • Stem Cells from Promise to Reality

Thursday 17th October

  • Quantum communication and encryption
    With Rajiv Shah
  • Indigenous Futures in STEM
    With Christopher Lawrence
  • The Impact of online abuse on peak performance: Unpacking the Silencing Effect on women in sport, business and beyond
    With Yasmin London & Luke Cook
  • Beyond Jurassic Park: how engineering biology could take a bite out of some of Australia’s toughest challenges - but only if we let it.
    With Justine Lacey & Craig Morton
  • From Woes to Wows: AI’s Magic Touch in Tax and Finance
    With Angela Shi
  • Purpose Aligned Profit: Leading the Charge vs Leading the Change
    With Brooke Roberts
  • Former UK Spy Chief, Sally Walker Says Diversity in Australia’s Cyber Workforce is a Strategic Imperative
    With Sally Walker
  • Bet on Better Decisions: Unveiling the Power of Decision-Making Psychology for Leadership Success
    With Juliette Tobias-Webb

Friday 18th October

  • Game of drones in our biggest cities
    With Tom Caska
  • Diversifying Diversity: Beyond Buzzwords Towards Inclusive Innovation
    With Rashina Hoda
  • Culture fit: Why migrants and WOC should be founding more companies
    With Samadhi Pelenda, Ananya Sinha & Sandra Suen
  • The Future of Tech in 2050: Neural AR and Thought-Powered VR & Haptic Tech
    With Patricia Haueiss
  • Why startups fail - lessons and practical examples from working with 100+ founders
    With Michael Batko
  • How VR-ready are you: Virtually a new way of working & learning
    With Mimi Lee, Karen Khaw & Rehan Wickremeratne
  • Luxury Recrafted Macrotrend
    With Christopher Sanderson
  • We have the tools to end HIV, so what's getting in the way?