SXSW EDU

Vote for our SXSW EDU 2025 panels!

Read about our WorkingNation panel proposals for SXSW EDU 2025 and vote August 6 through August 18!
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WorkingNation is getting ready for SXSW EDU in Austin in March of 2025!

We’ve got a dynamic list of panel proposals addressing the intersection of education and work, and offering solutions to barriers that are keeping people from good, family-sustaining jobs and careers.

We have partnered with some fantastic organizations and thought leaders on these proposals and we are asking for your support in bringing these panels to life on the stages at SXSW EDU.

Turn these ideas into reality by casting your vote through the SXSW EDU 2025 PanelPicker.

It’s easy to be part of the voting community. Go to the PanelPicker page to sign up (it’s free!) and sign in. You can search for the WorkingNation proposals using the titles below. OR, even easier, check out the panel proposals below, then follow the proposal links in this article to cast your vote.

Help send our WorkingNation-moderated panels to Austin!

AI: Ethics, Education, and Work

The AI genie is out of the bottle and there’s no turning back. AI has already made its way into the classroom and the workplace, so It’s important we continue to examine how we harness the benefits in an ethical way, while we minimize the potential negative impacts on students, workers, and society. Our panel features renowned ethicists and people who have practical experience in the fields of education and work.

Follow this link to cast your vote!

Reinventing the Heartland

To thrive in the 21st century, America’s heartland cities must create their own innovation economies and grow in more inclusive ways. While tech jobs, venture capital, and R&D are concentrated on the coasts, cities across the heartland are making historic efforts to reinvent themselves for the innovation age. Learn how to reorient civic ecosystems around inclusive tech-led growth from the very people who are doing it.

Follow this link to cast your vote!

Making the Economic Case for Workforce Access for Immigrants

Multiple studies, including those from the Congressional Budget Office and Boston University, find increased immigration in the U.S. increases economic growth. Even low-wage workers contribute to the economy through taxes and the greater the education and skill level of migrants, the greater the economic benefit. The panel examines initiatives and programs that are helping immigrant and refugee populations achieve financial mobility through upskilling and continued education, further adding to their local economies.

Follow this link to cast your vote!

Space as the Ultimate Classroom Catalyst

Space excites kids. It should excite teachers. Technology development, commercialization, and miniaturization are enabling students to participate in developing and operating space systems in the classroom. This panel will empower educators with tools/strategies to harness space as an educational resource, push the needle for literacy/math & prepare students for career readiness through career technical education. Speakers will offer multiple viewpoints & discuss the excitement of space, workforce development & the importance of STEM research to build effective space curriculum.

Follow this link to cast your vote!

Breaking Barriers: Justice-impacted People in the Workforce

An estimated 79 million Americans have a criminal record of some kind, with 19 million incarcerated or formerly incarcerated. Having a conviction or even an arrest record can often stand in the way of someone being able to get a job and earn a decent wage. In some cases, it can also stand in the way of acquiring education benefits that could lead to economic mobility and curb recidivism. This panel will take a deep dive into the issues facing the justice-impacted, sharing examples of programs and initiatives that are making a positive economic change in people’s lives. We will be joined on the panel by two people who run these programs.

Follow this link to cast your vote!

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.