At SXSW, Joe Biden Recruits Others To Join Cancer-Fighting Mission

AUSTIN, TX — In many ways, the appearance of Joe Biden at SXSW was an inevitability as he embarks on a new mission in his post-political life: The fight against cancer. Availing himself of a captive audience of fellow presenters at the conference, the former vice president appealed to them to help him wage the battle against the scourge.

"You're the future," Biden said on Sunday afternoon to a packed audience of some 1,300 people at the Austin Convention Center, addressing others in attendance representing the cream of the crop in technology and media. “You could make a gigantic impact. We need your ingenuity. You could have a profound impact on cancer.”

Those fortunate enough to listen to Biden speak secured a limited number of wristbands (that went quickly) to gain entry into the ballroom where Biden spoke after being introduced by his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. Befitting the popularity he enjoyed while vice president, he was greeted by the audience with a standing ovation.

Biden was in town to expound on his "National Cancer Moonshot" initiative launched in the waning days of his White House service he's now continuing as part of nonprofit Biden Foundation he oversees with his wife. For the Bidens, the fight is personal: Their son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46 — a loss still fresh about which Biden grew palpably emotional during his talk.

The venue was ideal for presenting his talk, he noted: "South by Southwest has brought together some of the most creative minds in the world."

He continued on his theme as an entreaty to the creative minds attending the annual, massive conference. "Many of you are developing technologies and innovations for purposes large and small, fun and serious, entertaining and lifesaving, that have nothing to do with cancer — but you could make a gigantic impact,” Biden continued. “We need you to help us reach people who need to change their behavior and avoid cancer. You’re doing it to help them figure out how to buy a product. We need to reach people.”

While his talk was largely apolitical, politics were referenced — though through the prism of fighting cancer and other diseases. Biden reminded the audience of a spirit of bipartisanship that today seems a relic of the past, reminding the audience of the passage of $6.3 billion in funding for the 21st Century Cures Act that helped finance his own cancer-fighting efforts. He also mentioned the $30 million earmarked during his vice presidency to improve electronic record-keeping practices.

"Guess what?" he said, invoking the folksy charm that has endeared him across party lines. "The only bipartisan thing left in America is the fight against cancer," he said, noting the abundance of "really decent people" in Congress from both sides of the aisle.

While voicing frustration over the seemingly disorganized administration of President Donald Trump — including a head of the Environmental Protection Agency who publicly said recently he is unconvinced human activity has contributed to global warming — he expressed hope the current president might take on the cancer fight.

"It's frustrating," he said in reaction to the question about the successor to his former boss, President Barack Obama, although he didn't mention Trump by name.

“It is my hope that this new administration, once it gets organized… will be able to focus on and be as committed and enthusiastic as we were with the goal of ending cancer as we know it,” the former vice president said. “I pledge before all of you and all the world that I will do everything in my power to work with the new administration.”

But Biden chose to end his talk by referencing another president, John F. Kennedy, who challenged the country to send a man to the moon before the end of the 1960s, likening that once implausibly lofty goal to his current focus in fighting cancer.

“He talked about the effort to go to the moon as a commitment the American people had made and that they were quote, ‘unwilling to postpone,’” Biden said. “I am unwilling to postpone for one day longer the things we can do now to extend people’s lives, and so should you be.”

The Texas venue at Austin's SXSW for Biden's moon-invoking plea proved especially fitting, given the setting of JFK's lunar challenge of 1962, delivered in a speech by the former president before a similarly large gathering at the Rice University stadium in Houston.

Biden established the National Cancer Moonshot and addressed it as part of the Connect to End Cancer series in collaboration with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the AT&T Foundry for Connected Health and Merck & Co. Inc. The Connect to End Cancer series at SXSW was one of the Health Track offerings, providing education, exposure and potential development support to entrepreneurs while encouraging collaboration among innovators, industry executives, venture capitalists, celebrities, philanthropists and SXSW attendees who share a commitment to Making Cancer History, SXSW organizers previously explained.

The appearance of Biden at this year's SXSW was the biggest draw at the conference by a figure who is arguably the highest profile one of all those attending to deliver a talk. His booking comes a year after Obama and his wife, former First Lady Michelle Obama, spoke at the conference, the former becoming the first sitting president to ever stage such a talk at the annual gathering.

>>> Photos courtesy of SXSW