Hamburg is bringing Flying Taxis, Female Founders, and the Future of Media from Europe to SXSW 2019

Austin, TX / Hamburg (Germany), March 09, 2019. From March 9 to 14, the north German city of Hamburg will be contributing to the most topical issues at SXSW Interactive – including urban air mobility, the media industry, and women in tech and music. As part of this year’s official SXSW schedule, there will be three Reeperbahn Hamburgers Receptions. What is more, the Reeperbahn Festival / Keychange Showcase at the EU House aims to strengthen the position of women in the music industry. About a dozen startup companies have been able to qualify via Hamburg-based programs and are now presenting innovations for the media sector and other industries in Austin. Audiences at SXSW will thus have the opportunity to be inspired by new business concepts, festivals and digital conferences from Hamburg – one of the most creative business locations in Europe. A full overview of our top 20 program recommendations and RSVP are available online at www.hamburg-business.com.

Urban air mobility
It looks as if the skies over metropolitan areas will become a lot more exciting very soon: whether it is urban air taxies shuttling you to work and back, or drones flying blood samples between labs and hospitals above jammed road traffic – innovative new services are due to revolutionize both our living standards and the service sectors. Hamburg is the world’s third largest location for civil aviation, with major players such as Airbus and Lufthansa Technik. And the city is on the way to becoming a showroom for future mobility as a broad range of lighthouse projects in the areas of autonomous driving, ride sharing and intelligent traffic control have been launched in recent years. Little wonder then that SXSW sessions on Urban Air Mobility and Smart City in particular will be joined by experts from Hamburg:

Flying Taxis and Ambulance Drones: SciFi 2 Reality
Roland Gerhards (ZAL Tech Center), Tassilo Wanner (Lilium), Brian Wynne (Auvsi – Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), Susan Ying (Ampaire)
Mar 13, 2019 | 2:00pm – 3:00pm at Hilton Austin Downtown, Salon K; 500 East 4th St.
Info & RSVP at: https://bit.ly/2C6BVkY

Women in Music and Digital Media
Female perspectives are present at SXSW more than ever. This year’s Reeperbahn Hamburgers will once again host the Digital Media Women Day, brought to Austin by Germany’s biggest community of professional women in digital media. The Digital Media Women network was founded in Hamburg and offers an international platform for discussing, advising on and creating visibility around digital leadership. With the dedicated Keychange Initiative, the music industry is also joining forces in an effort to achieve gender equality. Today, the initiative includes 100 music festivals from Europe and Canada, with the Reeperbahn Festival as one of the first festivals to join. The goal is to have a 50 percent share of women among festival participants by 2022. At this year’s SXSW, the initiators will be hosting a concert night, featuring four female artists from around the globe.

Reeperbahn Hamburgers @ SXSW – Digital Media Women Day
Sara Brand (True Wealth Ventures), Laurie Felker-Jones (JuiceBox Hero), Hannah Asmussen (Localyze), Jennifer Schäfer (Daily Dress), Freya Oehle, Haydee Moreno (Almost Home Financial)
Mar 10, 2019 | 4:00pm – 7:00pm at Downtown Burgers; 503 East Cesar Chavez St.
Info & RSVP: https://bit.ly/2EOIIAy

Reeperbahn Festival / Keychange Showcase
Lineup: Mavi Phoenix (AT), Gurr (DE), Lowly (DK) and SOAK (UK)
Mar 11, 2019 | 8:00pm – 11:00pm at EU@SXSW (EU House); 508 East 6th St.
Info & RSVP: https://bit.ly/2tVP9MV

Future of Media and Startup Pitches
With AboutYou, Hamburg is home to the most recent “unicorn” in Germany. More than a dozen startup teams from Hamburg are attending this year’s SXSW – perhaps a good occasion to experience the next potential unicorn at one of the various pitch sessions. The Reeperbahn Startups Pitch by Hamburg startups is a launchpad to SXSW for nascent enterprises from Europe. Hamburg is one of Europe’s strongest media capitals and home to Europe’s leading next media accelerator (NMA). NMA MEDIA MATCH connects rising media tech startups from all around Europe with media executives and investors.

NMA Media MATCH by next media accelerator
with Indieframe (DK), Ceretai (SE), ContentFlow (DE), Aiconix (DE) and many more
Mar 11, 2019 | 11:00am – 2:00pm at German Haus; 410 East 6th St.
Info & RSVP: https://bit.ly/2SRYD5M

Global Startup Showcase by Reeperbahn Startup Pitch
with Coldplasmatech, Cargonexx, Localyze, DailyDress, Tomorrow, AIRY, SCRIBERS[HUB],
JobMatchMe, Spice VR
Mar 11, 2019 | 4:00pm – 6:30pm at Galvanize: 119 Nueces St.
Info & RSVP: https://bit.ly/2tTiw2z

About Reeperbahn, St Pauli and Hamburg:
Hamburg – a hub for creative industries and a city on the waterfront – is the most dynamic economic region in northern Europe. Hamburg is the advertising and media capital of Germany and the favorite working place for creative minds, artists, musicians, game designers and major industry leaders such as Facebook and Google. The Hanseatic city is one of the top locations in Europe for startups. As the center of the country's music industry, it attracts both artists and music business professionals and is hosting one of the three biggest and most important music business events in Europe, with around 45,000 visitors: the Reeperbahn Festival from September 18-21, 2019. The city’s wide variety of high culture provides a stimulating environment and excellent opportunities for creative minds and young entrepreneurs. The legendary clubs on the infamous Reeperbahn have long been serving as springboards to fame: the Beatles were not the only ones to have their breakthrough here. Much of the young music scene is based in the districts of Altona and St Pauli – home to the Reeperbahn. Hamburg’s position as one of the most dynamic economic regions in Europe is rooted in a mix of excellent economic potential and a high standard of living. Many startups from Hamburg successfully developed into international companies, including AboutYou, Deposit Solutions, mytaxi, and XING. Startups such as Dreamlines, Kreditech, and Sonormed continue to write this success story.

Further media information on Hamburg partners, activities and events at SXSW 2019:
www.marketing.hamburg.de/sxsw.html