Translated from 日本語 • View original Nice to meet you, this is Hotta, an application engineer. This time, I would like to introduce the categories that I was interested in in SXSW (South by Southwest) Pitch.
What is SXSW (South by Southwest)?
Interactive, Film, and Music, and is a global conference and festival held annually in Austin, Texas, USA.
Famously, Twitter and Airbnb have won awards at SXSW, and they have continued to this day. It is a very educational event to catch up with the trends of the world after this. This is the most exciting event where you can quickly catch the services that will become popular in the world.
What is SXSW Pith?
It is an event where the world's leading companies compete in technology and business value by presenting in front of experts and audiences. If you win, you will receive a cash prize. The prize money alone is worth attending, but it doesn't end there. The audience includes not only general participants but also investors and entrepreneurs, and presentations there can be expected to further develop business.
This year in 2019 consisted of the following 10 different categories: * Transportation & Deliver Technology * Social & Culture Technology * Enterprise & Smart Data * Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality(Augmented & Virtual Reality Technology) * Hyper-Connected Communities Technology * Blockchain Technology * Artificial IntelligenceTechnology) * Sports and Performance Data Technology * Entertainment & Content Technology * ****Health and Wearables Technology
A total of 50 companies were introduced for each category.
The overall atmosphere is like this.
Interesting Categories
The category that I found interesting to participate in is Blockchain Technology. Speaking of blockchain in Japan, it is a technology that is attracting attention as a fintech (FinTech) for the use of virtual currency and banks. Here are some examples of how SXSW companies used blockchain.
BEXT 360
It is a SaaS (service-as-a-service) that allows blockchain to be used for supply chain management. Tokens are issued for each process of each product from factories and farmers and embedded in the blockchain until they reach consumers. This makes it easier to track when something goes wrong.
EGGSCHAIN
It is a service that allows consumers to track information on genetic materials such as frozen ovaries and sperm. It was impressive that many doctors participated as advisors at this company.
KNOWBELLA TECH
This service provides scientists with an ecosystem where they can freely collaborate on research and more. We provide all the tools and opportunities you need for collaborative research. In addition, the results of research are securely managed using blockchain on this system. It was interesting to create connections between people from blockchain.
NEBULA GENOMICS
It is a service that provides genetic test data. The information of the genetic information provider is robustly protected by the blockchain, and the test data is provided to the user while maintaining anonymity. In addition, test data users must also provide their genetic information at the beginning of use. The service won the blockchain category.
STEAMCHAIN
This service collects machine performance and usage status using IoT, and the collected information is protected by blockchain. Service users can use the SDK as a data collection platform.
Conclusion
What did you think? I am happy that SXSW's unique advanced service was conveyed even a little. Blockchain is a technology that has been attracting attention in recent years, but the reality is that no way to use it other than FinTech has been found. There are many very interesting services introduced in Pitch this time, but I wonder if it really has to be blockchain. I was keenly aware that we need to think about how to make effective use of future technologies.