In this talk, veteran SXSW attendee & speaker Yiying Lu - one of the Fast Company's Most Creative Person in Business, Bilingual TEDx Speaker, and creator of the Twitter Fail Whale, Dumpling & Boba tea emoji - will share her 12-year journey, starting as a young UTS graduate from Sydney before attending SXSW in Austin in 2011, and becoming a SXSW featured artist in 2012. From there, Lu launched brand activation campaigns for NSW Trade & Investment, Expedia and helped tech start-ups raise millions from 2013 to 2017 as a global creative director at 500 Global. She will share her first-hand experience and detail her journey from being an attendee to a SXSW feature speaker on Cross-Cultural Innovation and Creativity, to one of the featured speakers for the inaugural SXSW Sydney 2023. She will share creative case studies that make you cry and laugh, and tips & suggestions for making the best of the festival and life.