Come celebrate Baratunde Thurston’s (AB '99) induction into the SXSW Interactive Hall of Fame with SXSW at the Interactive Innovation Awards ceremony, Tuesday, March 15, 2016 in the 6th floor ballroom of the Hilton Austin Downtown.
Hosted by Brooke Van Poppelen with special guest Julian Velard.
The SXSW Interactive Festival Hall of Fame recognizes those trendsetters whose career accomplishments have paved the future of the new media industry. These honorees inspire the SXSW Interactive community with their creativity and hard work in the digital industries. Induction into the SXSW Interactive Festival Hall of Fame occurs as part of the SXSW Interactive Innovation Awards ceremony.
Baratunde Thurston (2016)
Baratunde Thurston is a supervising producer at The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Comedy Central where he oversees digital expansion. A New York Times bestselling author, activist, comedian, and entrepreneur, Thurston has an uncanny ability to crack the shell of any uncomfortable topic through a personal, accessible, and intelligent point of view.
His work has found expression in the pages of Fast Company, on the screens of HBO, Comedy Central, CNN, MSNBC, BBC, on NPR and countless podcasts, including Our National Conversation About Conversations About Race. He has hosted shows on Discovery's Science Channel, Yahoo, AOL, YouTube, and Pivot TV, where he was co-host of TakePart Live. He is a co-founder of Jack & Jill Politics, has served as Digital Director of The Onion, a Judge for the Knight Foundation News Challenge, an affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and as a director’s fellow at the MIT Media Lab. He authored the New York Times bestseller How To Be Black, and is a co-founder of Cultivated Wit which produces Comedy Hack Day.
Baratunde has been honored by the ACLU of Michigan “for changing the political and social landscape one laugh at a time,” nominated for the Bill Hicks Award for Thought Provoking Comedy, and has been named on The Root’s list of the 100 most influential African Americans, as well as Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People In Business. He has advised the Obama White House and serves on the National Board of BUILD.
Indeed, Baratunde has been a beloved part of SXSW Interactive for many years, from hosting Fray Cafe in 2008, to hosting the Interactive Web Awards in 2009, to a perennial favorite speaker from 2010 - 2014, including the Keynote “How to Read the World” in 2012.