Conference News: More Metaverse; ‘Nother Name Change; SXSW CFP

More Metaverse: The Economist is dipping its toe into the metaverse waters with a new event this fall. The Metaverse Summit will happen live on 26 October at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel San Jose with approximately 500 attendees. Day two (27 October) will be virtual and be open to approximately 2,000 qualified attendees. According to the conference organizers, they wanted this event to cut through the noise and consider the economic and social value of the metaverse to companies and governments. The programme already includes speakers from Roblox, EY, Crate & Barrel, SkyBridge Capital, Endeavor VR, American Eagle Outfitters and more.

By Any Other Name: Earlier this year we covered the news that VMware was changing its customer conference name from VMworld to VMware Explore. And now the team at Oracle is also changing the name of its flagship event for customers and partners. Oracle Open World will now be called Oracle CloudWorld. The gathering will be in Las Vegas for the first time this year from 17 – 20 October.  In addition to keynotes from the company’s top brass, attendees will learn about Oracle cloud infrastructure and cloud applications “from the people who build it and the community that uses it.”

Speaking Opportunity: Ready to create an “Iconic Moment” at SXSW 2023? Now through 24 July, session and speaker ideas are welcome through SXSW’s trademark PanelPicker for both SXSWedu (6-9 March 2023) and SXSW (10-19 March 2023), both in Austin. SXSW seeks “creative thinkers to enter speaking proposals that reveal ahead-of-the-curve solutions to the world’s toughest problems, as well as present win-win outcomes and unexpected discoveries about the resilience of the human condition.” New for 2023 is the opportunity to only suggest a speaker vs. building out a complete proposal with a fleshed-out idea. Once the deadline for submitting closes, every proposal will be loaded onto the public PanelPicker for community voting from 9-21 August.

Lunchtime Learning: The CEO of SXSW recently reflected on the history of the popular Austin event, noting it has “changed in many surprising and meaningful ways since 1987, but at its core, SXSW remains a tool for creative people to develop their careers by bringing together people from around the globe to meet, learn, and share ideas.” With this in mind, the conference opened its vault of SXSW Iconic Moments through the years so the greater SX community can relive culture-defining sessions featuring creative visionaries from the worlds of tech, film, music, education, and beyond.

Coming Up Next Week: VentureBeat Transform kicks off a full two weeks of hybrid programming in mid-July, beginning with the Executive Summit, 19 July at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The in-person summit is followed by the virtual VB Transform Data Week (20-21 July). Kidscreen Summit returns to an in-person format for the first time since 2020, when it’s held 18-21 July at the Intercontinental Miami. Kidscreen attendees can expect to hear from Amazon Kids, LEGO, and PBS KIDS among other digital children’s brands. The International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS) runs 18-20 July in New York, a collaboration between the FBI and Fordham University, focused on the intersection of cyber threat analysis, operations, research, and law enforcement. And on 19 July, Interop Digital: The Identity Crisis will explore technologies that are revolutionizing identity governance and access management—from multi-factor authentication, cloud-native identity governance, consumer identity and access management.