You can help bring Pittsburgh innovation to the world at the next SXSW EDU: Here’s how.

Kidsburgh’s Parents as Allies project is bringing parents directly into conversation with schools in groundbreaking ways. In more than two dozen school districts, parents and school staff members are building trust, experimenting with innovative family-school engagement strategies and creating powerful support systems for students.

It’s been an eye-opening experience and we’ve been glad to share this progress with you through the articles we’ve been writing.

Now, we’re ready to share all that we’ve been discovering with a global audience at the next South by Southwest EDU conference.

If you’re not familiar South by Southwest (better known as SXSW), this annual gathering takes place in Austin, Texas each spring. One part of the festival is SXSW EDU, where creative thinkers and innovators from around the world present the latest research and discoveries related to learning and education.

The fun part: The general public gets to help decide which presentations and panel discussions will make it to the SXSW stage.

This year, the Parents as Allies team has submitted a proposal to bring our family-school engagement discoveries to SXSW. In this panel moderated by Kidsburgh, the audience will hear from a parent, a principal and a superintendent about how they are creating sustainable family-school engagement practices and overcoming barriers to build authentic trust.

Can you help us get there? Now through Aug. 20, you can vote to send our Parents as Allies team to SXSW EDU. Just click here to vote. (If you don’t have a free SXSW account, it takes only a moment to make one.)

At the SXSW “panel picker” website, you will also have the chance to vote for other Pittsburgh-based ideas from members of our local Remake Learning network. These include:

• a presentation by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh about designing elementary schools to be more like children’s museums
• a panel discussion by Remake Learning that explores creating powerful learning ecosystems around the world
• a panel discussion hosted by Remake Learning Days on the ways that learning festivals can catalyze innovation and communities
• another Children’s Museum session, this one about creating inclusive art and maker education spaces for all
• a presentation by University of Pittsburgh asst. professor Kelly Battle Beck about practical ways to better support neurodivergent kids
• and a presentation by the Andy Warhol Museum about the North Shore’s emerging Pop District

You can even vote for a panel discussion by our friends at HundrED and the videogame makers at Supercell, who will present about the growing world of gamified learning.

We really appreciate your time. Thanks for considering helping get us and our research to SXSW EDU. We believe our discoveries can help parents and teachers, not just in the Pittsburgh region but throughout the world.