Explore the SXSW EDU 2026 Crossover Day Lineup

Connect with peers across the SXSW EDU & SXSW communities for a full day of discovery on Crossover Day, Thursday, March 12, and this year it’s bigger than ever.

Experience powerful Keynote and Featured Sessions programmed together by SXSW and SXSW EDU programmers, the full SXSW EDU program – including over 50 sessions, meet ups, workshops, and more – SXSW Innovation Conference sessions, plus even more SXSW festival programming.

On Crossover Day, you will have access to over 15 World Premiers at the SXSW Film & TV Festival. Your access extends to all of the can’t-miss Music Festival showcases including The Smokeout, British Music Embassy, Rolling Stone’s Future of Music showcase presented by JBL with Lola Young, and more. Stay tuned for additional Thursday Film & TV screenings and Music showcases, coming soon.

Don’t miss the Crossover Day Mixer, presented by Imaginable Futures, that evening, where SXSW EDU and SXSW attendees can come together for a celebration of innovation in education and creativity.

Plus, the SXSW EDU GO Mobile App is now available! Download it today and start building your schedule.

Dive into the Thursday, March 12 Crossover Day lineup — with more announcements coming soon:

Keynote

Keynote: Jennifer B. Wallace

Bestselling author Jennifer B. Wallace explores mattering—the human need to feel valued and add value—as the secret ingredient to lifelong wellbeing and the key to deep connections and purpose. Drawing on global research and powerful stories, she reveals how mattering offers a potent antidote to loneliness and burnout, and delivers practical takeaways to help people unlock mattering at home, at work, and in the wider world.

Jennifer B. Wallace, Bestselling Author, The Mattering Institute

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Featured Sessions

How to Support Resilient Youth in an AI World

Generative AI is rapidly reshaping how young people learn, connect, and understand themselves. From AI tutors and creative tools to always-on digital companions, these technologies promise new opportunities, but also raise urgent questions about children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Rather than focusing on whether AI should be used in education, how do we ensure AI strengthens—rather than undermines—young people’s capacity to think, relate, and thrive?

Drawing from the recent Brookings report "A New Direction for Students in an AI World: Prosper, Prepare, Protect,” with data across 50 countries, this panel will include a rich mix of perspectives and explore what it truly means to support resilient youth in an AI-saturated world.

Martin McKay, Executive Chair & Founder, Everway
Maureen Polo, CEO, Hello Sunshine
Rebecca Winthrop, Director, Center for Universal Education, Brookings

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Moonshots That Move the Needle

Advanced tech is quickly expanding the ways we can support teachers and students both in and out of the classroom. But how do we design and fund programs that turn potential into impact? This panel explores how setting bold, time-bound learning goals can accelerate and level-up innovation while catalyzing impactful financial support. From coordinated research programs to targeted funding strategies, this session will explore how moonshot-centered models can rally diverse innovators around a shared outcome, encourage rigorous validation, and accelerate breakthroughs for teaching and learning.

Arati Prabhakar, Former Presidential Science & Technology Advisor, Office of Science and Technology (Biden Administration)
Kumar Garg, President, Renaissance Philanthropy
Jamie Sterling, Vice President of Product, Research & Development, Carnegie Learning
Eden Xenakis, Chief of Staff, Bezos Family Foundation

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Social Health Trends & Predictions: Connection is the New Frontier

Social health is today where mental health was 10-15 years ago—but we’ve reached a turning point. That was the bold claim from leading expert Kasley Killam at SXSW 2025. This year, she’s back to reveal the most important breakthroughs, trends, and predictions shaping the rapidly growing movement to transform society through connection and community. Drawing on new research and cutting-edge innovation around the globe, Killam will surface surprising insights, the most promising opportunities for impact, and an inspiring vision of what’s next. No matter your industry, this is the session you can’t miss if you want to understand—and help lead—the future of relationships, longevity, and human thriving.

Kasley Killam, Author, The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier

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Strategy in the Times of Chaos: Imagining Futures of Education

Daily, we wake to the unimaginable becoming reality: the highest temperatures in recorded history, technology acquiring human-like communication capabilities, realignment of global alliances and ideologies. Such times of upheaval are opportunities to reinvent the institutions, ways of thinking, and modes of doing. Sociologist John Fabian Witt said, these are “occasions in which people remake the world.” In this conversation, experts with decades of experience in future-facing strategies, will share foresight techniques for imagining radically different futures and detecting signals of reinvention and scholarship on how communities depicted as under-resourced create practices and institutions of their own—as examples for building more just and equitable futures.

Marina Gorbis, Executive Director, Institute for the Future
Dr. Maisha T. Winn, Professor, Stanford University

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Over 50 Thursday Sessions

Conversations

Meet Ups

Panels

Podcasts

Solos

Workshops

Don’t Miss Out On SXSW EDU 2026

Register and book your hotel today to break new ground in education through compelling sessions, in-depth workshops, mentorship, film screenings, trailblazing competitions, a dynamic expo, networking opportunities, and so much more at SXSW EDU from March 9-12, 2026.

Be the first to know of any information leading up to the event through Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and our newsletter.

SXSW EDU Speaker Photos (left to right in order of appearance): Kasley Killam, Jennifer B. Wallace, Kumar Garg, Dr. Maisha T. Winn, Martin McKay