A few members of the LOTI team recently attended SXSW 2026 to explore the coming together of tech, culture, and innovation. For those unfamiliar, SXSW (South by Southwest) is an annual event held in Austin, Texas, that brings together creatives, tech leaders, and innovators from across the globe to explore the future of music, film, and interactive media.

SXSW has been running in London over the past 2 years and in this blog, we share our personal highlights from the conference. Irene is a Service Designer at LOTI working on the health mission and Sadie is a Data Project Manager working on London energy and retrofit projects. 

Talk us through what your day was like at the SXSW 2026 conference 

Irene: One of the mornings I attended the session with Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson talking through their very different and non-linear career paths filled with pivots when least expected. On another morning, it was the Head of Design at Miro making the case that the Double Diamond is dead (It’s not. But it was a fun title).

In the afternoons I’d hop between the pop-ups dotted around, entering a simulated desert at the XR (extended reality) experience at Rich Mix Cinema to show you the impact of global warming. Then I’d swing by an interesting pop-up on the future of music technology at 93 Feet East before eventually finding myself back in the talks circuit, choosing between a talk on AI’s reshaping of companionship or Lego’s method to creativity. That’s kind of the magic of SXSW though. You never know where the idea’s going to come from, so you just say yes to as much as you can.

Sadie: One of things I loved about SXSW was how integrated it felt with the city. Exploring the conference also meant exploring part of the city – from walking along Brick Lane to passing by some of the smaller Shoreditch studios. It felt a stark change from some conferences where you might not see daylight for 8 hours. It gave time to walk, stretch and reflect between the sessions which I really enjoyed. 

I was keen to pack my days and experience as many different elements of the conferences as I could. I headed to a talk on how we need to change how we go about doing change in the AI era. I then participated in a round table (in the crypt of a church no less) on data centres and who speaks for future generations when thinking about water, energy and land requirements. I stopped by the XR (extended reality) experience which was odd because I was dropped into and exploring the inside of a human intestine. I also listened to a panel on how creativity can change society and the role of art before finishing the day exploring some of the Abbey Road Studio pop-up for a play with some of their instruments. 

What was something interesting you learnt or saw at the SXSW 2026 conference?

Sadie: A panel that really stood out to me was on ‘Rising Stars in Health Tech’. It introduced the NHS Entrepreneurship Programme which is a 12-month programme that supports clinical and non-clinical NHS staff to scale healthcare innovations without leaving their job. 

Three people who had been through the programme shared their innovations:

• Drones in London that cut delivering blood samples from half an hour to minutes
• Replacing an invasive post mortem with CT scanning 
• A wellness app that evaluates the impact of music on the body 

Whilst it seems obvious that innovation can come from someone not wanting to put up with their day to day frustrations any longer (i.e. waiting for hours for deliveries), it is less clear what support that person needs to make it happen. The programme gave these clinical leads the time, support and space to develop their idea and put it to the test. Being inside the system and understanding the intricacies of how it works (and how it actually really works) means they can design a product that achieves their goal whilst speaking the same language as the system it is part of.

I came away thinking what that might look like for boroughs. Speaking to colleagues across local government, there is no end of ideas as to how things can be improved, how services could be reformed, and how residents can be better served. There simply isn’t enough time and head to make it meaningful – but what if a programme like this could make it so?

SXSW is not purely a tech and innovation conference, why is this interesting for the LOTI community?

Irene: I read an interesting book called “The Innovator’s DNA” which talks about the 5 different skills of innovators, one of which is called associating. Associating is the ability to connect knowledge from seemingly unrelated fields and spark new ideas. For associating innovation one of the requirements is to have that knowledge from disparate fields and areas. Rather than being a subject expertise, it is about being a generalist and being able to link or identify where something done somewhere else could relate to your field and create a spark from that. 

Whilst SXSW isn’t a purely tech and innovation conference, with talks spanning from music to film to creativity more generally, as innovators one of the most important skills is to stay curious and to learn from fields that may not seem obviously relevant, as sometimes that’s where the best ideas come from. A talk on how a documentary filmmaker builds trust with a subject over months of filming isn’t really about local government at all, but it might completely change how you think about running a public consultation. That kind of cross-field inspiration is what keeps your thinking big and divergent, pollinating and learning from unexpected sectors and fields.

What is a key takeaway from the SXSW conference for London boroughs? 

Sadie: At LOTI we are often challenging boroughs to think differently. Whether that’s stepping onboard a ‘Starship Simulator’ or designing the ‘Worst Service in the World’ as part of our LOTI CON 2026, we know that creativity, play and space to ‘make’ are important parts of innovation.

SXSW makes it easy to start thinking differently. Early in the week, I went to a talk on the ethics of using AI in music. It was interesting for me personally, thinking about the artists I listen to and my feelings towards AI being used to write and produce songs. It also raised themes of ownership, trust and data sharing, all of which are relevant to information governance which is part of all the data projects I work on. 

Embrace opportunities that challenge you to think differently! Whilst making the space to attend events like SXSW can be difficult, any engagement with topics that intersect with tech, culture and arts will do this for you. Whether it’s finding a podcast, reading a book (Irene’s recommendation above is a great one!) or even starting up a conversation over lunch. 

Even though SXSW 2026 is over, get your curiosity going by checking out some of the following resources: 

• Exploring the six themes of SXSW
• The uneasy relationship between technology and the natural 
• Relearning how to think deeply again