SXSW Panel Picker Community Voting Open Until August 23 📱

I have submitted a panel to speak at South by Southwest, March 2027 in Austin, Texas, and I need your help. Community voting is now live until August 23rd, and with your help, you will help my panel be able to get evaluated by the South by Southwest evaluators and staff. Here's how. So I am Zaakirah. I am a brand cultivating strategist. I am the founder of See Life Different Media. The concept behind that is I am a childhood eye cancer survivor and I see you only in one eye. And as a result of seeing in one eye, it has not stopped me from seeing life literally through different lens, being more empathetic to those who have different disabilities than I do, traveling the world to over 15 countries and making sure that everyone else who is marginalized has a platform as well. So South by Southwest is a technology, music, film, cultural conference that's been around since 1987, originally in Austin, Texas. But after 2025, they branched out to London and Australia. I had the opportunity to go to the one in London, and I got to get firsthand experience of why I know that this panel is super important. Yes, South by Southwest, S-O-S-X-S-W, does an excellent job of accommodating, but not many places are at that point where they are having people with different abilities and disabilities be at the forefront instead of the background. So this panel of Who Gets Seen is the name of it. Who Gets Seen: Building Accessible Media, Events, and Experiences helps you to make sure that you're keeping those with disability in the front of mind, not as an afterthought. A lot of times events that I have previously spoken If I don't ask and advocate for myself or advocate for others, it does get forgotten about. And then it's also making sure that captions, people who are able to see it, who cannot see that well, will understand with having image and video descriptions and captions for those who cannot hear that well, or those with English as their second language. And then as well as continuing to have sensory spaces for those who need, there's too much conversation going on, too much music going on, how can we make sure that their sensory is not being overloaded? So, You voting for my panel is a community panel. So South by Southwest probably was one of the first ones to make sure to open up the community to be able to vote for the panel. And that helps you kind of get a leg up. You are part of the reason why South by Southwest evaluators will even take a look at the panel because there's over 3,000 panels that were submitted. But if you believe that this conversation is important, then all you have to do is vote. And I will show you how you can do that. I made a Loom video, so I'm going to see if I can share that really quick. It literally takes 30 seconds to create a completely free account, even if you've never heard of South by Southwest, you have no desire to go to South by Southwest. Yes, you may have to keep track of one more password, but there are platforms that help you to create easy-to-remember passwords, easy to forget about. But you create a free account, vote for the panel called Who Gets Seen, or just Google panel picker, vote for the panel that that's called Who Gets Seen, or if you look for the word accessible, you'll see that. And then it's going to be a panel with other— 2 other ladies that I actually know in person. I got to meet them at a Johnson Johnson content creator conference in person, and one of them is deafblind and the other one has epilepsy, but they both are very active speakers and very active entrepreneurs. And they also have their— have had their own share of ableism as well and have their own stories to be able to share as well, along with, you know, my own story. but I'll be mainly moderating the conversation to just guide the conversation, make sure that people are aware of other kinds of conditions and disabilities and how we can make sure that everyone is included. You know, just simple, 3 simple ways for people to be included in future events and media and in experiences. I also wanted to share that even if the goal is to get onto the South by Southwest stage, that has been a goal really since I knew about it. I knew about an iteration of it called All 3 Coasts in Atlanta, Georgia. I was a behind-the-scenes photographer for it when it was predominantly music and film and the technology portion. But having gone to the one in London, I got to see firsthand that they really are innovative. A lot of the ideas, a lot of your favorite technology companies, a lot of your favorite movies and music artists get their start at this festival. So it's literally making or breaking, and you're literally going to be the one who's responsible for doing that. So, Without further ado, if you will, I'm just going to show you a Loom video that I made some time ago to show you how you can vote for the panel.

Hi, I'm Zaakirah, and today I'm going to show you how you can vote for my panel for South by Southwest, Who Gets Seen? Building Accessible Media Events and Experiences. So if you are completely new to South by Southwest, you are going to have to make your own account. By clicking sign up. It's a lot— it's a free account, and it's probably just one more password that you're gonna have to forget about and use it one time and never come back again, because you only get to vote for our session one time. So make sure you choose an email that you actually check because it's gonna ask for verification. I'm just gonna make a password right now, agree to the terms, and sign up. And then we can click sign in. And I don't know what's happening. Okay. Oh, sorry. I have to confirm the email address first. So I'm doing that by clicking it in my email and confirming the account. And then I can go back to that and now sign in. And then it says vote now. So if you went to panelpaper.participate.southwest.edu, southbysouthwest.com. You're gonna have to search for it, but if you came directly from our link, it would take you immediately there. But if you have to search for it, I would type in the word seen, and then you'll see the option. So you'll see Get Seen, and I think you may have already voted because you clicked on a link. So you know that you voted when seeing the heart. If the heart is not there, you did not vote.

Okay.

Then that way you can click on it and see the description. I am Zaakirah. I'm the founder and the organizer. And then eventually there will be more videos and content and comments on who the other panelists are, who is Aaron Perkins, who is Darryl Howard. This specific video has me moderating so that you can see that I am capable of moderating, but also I did have the opportunity to moderate a panel with Darryl Howard. I will later add content of a podcast episode that I did with Aaron Perkins. So thank you so much for voting for us, and let us know if you have any questions.

Great. So that's how you do that. And now let's see if I can answer any other questions. Okay, so if I get it, it's going to be a huge dream come true. If I don't get it, I'm still going to be on the ground because this is all just— these are building blocks, building blocks for continuing to build community, building blocks for continuing to be able to advocate, continue to empower others who are ready to make sure that their content is more inclusive, continue to build a speaker bureau. I mean, all of this, it's building blocks again to make sure that people with disabilities have the platform to tell their story because they're brilliant and they've been through a lot and they have a lot to share. Now they just need to be confident to be able to do so. So I think that will simplify it. And the link again, if you still need to know how to vote, it's shortened already. You can just go to bit.ly, everything case sensitive. So 3 capital R, lowercase y, 8 capital J, capital N, capital X. And thank you for watching.