Happy Oscars Sunday, Digital LA peeps!
Happy Oscars Sunday!

Good luck nominees at the Oscars today! We've been attending digital-related awards and including in in our annual Digital at Awards coverage, which may help in your Oscar voting game today, including the  Visual Effects Awards ,  Annie Awards, Writers Guild Awards, Art Directors Guild Awards, ACE Editors Awards, Golden Reel Awards (sound). At the Publicists Awards on Friday, Get Out and Netflix Stranger Things won the top awards. In the Animated Film category, good luck digital nominees Coco (predicted to win), Boss Baby, and Ferdinand. 

How to Watch: In addition to watching on ABC TV, try to  watch online via your cable provider login. You can also try Hulu, YouTube, DirecTV, PlayStation VUE which offer ABC. 

Social: Follow @TheAcademy #Oscars, as well as your favorite actors, studios, and entertainment news. Tom Holland (Spider-Man) is taking over Instagram's account for red carpet coverage. Several Olympic athletes are also attending. 

SciTech Awards At tonight's broadcast, watch for the video clip of the Academy's SciTech Awards. Yes, developers, mathematicians,  and engineers can win Academy Awards too! We attended the Oscar SciTech Awards held three weeks ago where 11 SciTech awards were given to animation, compositing, and flying/underwater camera innovations. Blockparty character rigging, Premo and Presto animation software, Shotover K1 aerial camera, and the Hydrascope underwater camera which were all used in this year's Oscar nominees, were awarded. Rachel Marie Rose, on the Blockparty team, gave an inspiring speech, saying "For any young woman" dreaming of a career in tech, "I am proof that you can." Sir Patrick Stewart hosted the awards. See our recap in our article.
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More Weekend Ideas

Oscars (see above) and several invite-only Oscars parties including Vanity Fair, Elton John at PDC and more. We'll be at the City Gala social entrepreneurs awards.

Air and Style action sports by day and music concert by night continues much sunnier today in downtown LA. The event is owned by Shaun White, fresh from his gold medal snowboard Olympics win. Shaun gave VIP passes to his Olympics Team USA buddies, so you may see some Olympians dancing to the DJS.

Aladdin at the Pantages

MOVIES:  Death Wish, Red Sparrow
 
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OUR THREE EVENTS NEXT WEEK!


March 6, 7p
CTRL Collective Playa Vista


Join our first Robots panel, featuring local experts working on robots in education, transportation, and more B2C and B2B applications. 


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March 7, 7p
CTRL Collective DTLA


Our anual Digital Women event celebrates International Womens Day on the eve of the day with our panel with startup founders. Hear how they built their companies and their brands. 


CALL FOR SPEAKERS: Looking for more startup female founders to share their stories! Email info@digitalla.net with WOMEN as the subject. 
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Sunday, March 11, 5-7p
Westin Austin Downtown 



Headed to SXSW or in Austin? FREE RSVP for our sixth annual Digital Drinks - Austin during SXSW. Of course we found a rooftop pool for LA style poolside cocktails and drinks to enjoy views of downtown Austin. Cash bar. Great to catch up with LA and other friends you couldn't find on the SXSW show floor. FREE RSVP http://dlasxsw18.eventbrite.com

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CALL for SPEAKERS for our upcoming events;

- Digital LA - Venue VR panel. With the opening of several venue VR locations in LA this month, we will discuss venue VR in LA. If you work for a venue VR company, email info@digitalla.net with VR as subject.

- Digital LA - Esports panel, Mar 26 @ Chinese Theatres. We are looking for esports experts to talk about building community, and some esports players too. Email info@digitalla.net with Esports as the subject

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Congrats Digital at Awards
We cover digital at all Hollywood awards shows every season, and list winners in our Digital at Awards Tracker!  http://digitalla.net/awards18

Publicists Awards: Serkis, Get Out, Stranger Things win.  Andy Serkis received Movie Showman of the Year at the annual ICG Publicists Awards in Beverly Hills.
He joked that after doing press this year for three big franchise films he was in -Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Snoke mocap), Kong: Skull Island (Kong mocap), and Black Panther (Klaue) - he has PFPJ Post-Franchise Press Junket disorder. He thanked his publicists for helping him be known for his mocap and on-screen work. Another Star Wars actor Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose Tico, presented the top film and TV awards: Get Out (Universal) won the Motion Picture publicists award, with thanks to Jordan Peele. Stranger Things (Netflix) won the TV award, with thanks to to Shawn Levy. See our full article http://digtalla.net/publicistsawards18

Motion Picture Sound Editors - Golden Reel Awards.  War of the Planet of the Apes, Dunkirk, and Coco won big at the Motion Picture Sound Editors' Golden Reel awards at the Westin Bonaventure in Downtown LA on Feb 19.
War for the Planet of the Apes wins Sound Editing in a Feature Film - Dialogue and ADR. The Greatest Showman wins Sound Editing in a Feature Film - Music in a Musical. Blizzard's Overwatch "Honor and Glory" short won Sound Editing, animation short form. Coco won Sound Editing in a Feature Animation. For more winners, see our article http://digitalla.net/goldenreels18

Visual Effects Awards: War for Planet of the Apes, Coco, and Games of Thrones swept the film and TV award categories at the Visual Effects Awards at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The 16th Annual VES Awards recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation in film, animation, television, commercials, video games and special venues. Surprise presenter Mark Hamill presented the final "best picture" equivalent awards, saying that he was always fascinated with visual effects, especially the ones that let hem wield a lightsaber and use the force in Star Wars. See our article http://digitalla.net/vesawards18

WGA Awards: Horizon: Zero Dawn game and Starboy won digital related awards at the annual Writers Guild Awards, held February 11 at the Beverly Hllton in Beverly Hills. The annual awards recognizes writing excellence with more than 20 awards in film, TV, new media, games, news, children's and other categories. Narrative Director John Gonzalez and lead writer Ben McCaw accepted the award for the Horizon: Zero Dawn roleplaying game, which features a strong female lead. They both thanked their strong mothers, who recently passed away, for influencing them in writing a story with a strong lead. See our article http://digitalla.net/wgaawards18

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TECH NEWS 

Digital at Winter Olympics. Digital gets a gold medal at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, with dozens of AR, VR and robot activations by official Olympics and sponsor pavilions. We attended to see the digital integrations.  At the PyeongChang Olympic park Live pavilion, you can watch the Psy hologram dance in concert, performing Gangham style.  You can also make Soohorang dance with this gesture-controlled dancing demo at the Live pavilion.  At the ITC Pavilion, you can experience VR flying, or the 4-person bobsled.  The Samsung sponsor pavilion at the Gangnueng Olympic Park featured VR demos, and a VR gyroscope ride (photo right). See our article for more http://digitalla.net/winterolympics2018
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JOBS
Get or post a job on our job board  http://digitalla.net/jobs

- NEW!  LA Tourism and Convention Board is looking for a Senior Digital Producer!

-  Dermalogica: Global Digital Manager: Manage development and adoption of web-based beauty tools 

-  Dermalogica: CRM Manager. Run customer relationship and retention program including email, subscription, loyalty 

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OUR RECENT EVENTS

Cryptocurrency experts discussed what you need to know about Ethereum, DASH, EOS, Ripple and new models of ICO at our Digital LA - Cryptocurrency Beyond Bitcoin symposium on Tuesday at CTRL Collective Playa Vista.  DASH is for payments and it's very fast, faster than credit cards, said Amanda B Johnson, DASH official spokesperson. To accept payments in DASH any merchant or person can open up a GoCoin account and create an invoice to accept payments in DASH, said Steve Beauregard of Bloq and formerly at GoCoin. "ICOs should be building off network effect - collect money from value add investors who know what you're building and can help you grow," said Andrew Lew, founder of ICO Newsroom, a biweekly newsletter covering ICOs. Article with more panel highlights at http://digitalla.net/cryptobeyond
Missed this panel? Attend our just-added Crypto Q&A to ask questions next Tuesday!

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SILICON BEACH FEST 2017 Recap
Silicon Beach Fest Best of 2017 edition celebrated top Silicon Beach investors, startups, Hollywood executives and more with a week of panels, workshops and mixers focusing on Bitcoin, blockchain, VCs, accelerators, influencers and more at CTRL Collective locations from Pasadena to Playa Vista. See  article.

Tag yourself in the pics posted in our SBF17 album:  http://tinyurl.com/sbf17


The Video Content panel featured speakers including the CEO of Jukin Media, Fullscreen, Studio71, Twitch, Machinima and other leading content companies, moderated by David Bloom. See summary in David Bloom's Tubefilter  article.

Brock Pierce, Chair of the National Bitcoin Foundation, gave an inspiring keynote. He described his founding role in Bitcoin and blockchain startups and local LA incubator. He also encouraged startup founders to aspire to a higher purpose, mission, and making a difference.
DASH Systems won the Silicon Beach Fest - Startup Showcase 2017 title. DASH uses drones to fly packages from cargo planes the last air mile to people's front yards and doorsteps. DASH is an alum of the Make in LA hardware accelerator based in Chatsworth. DASH also won $500 in AmbassadHer credit. AmbassadHer helps marketers create campaigns via its network of millennial brand evangelists who get rewarded to post on Instagram and other social platforms. AmbassadHer evangelists helped promote #SBF17.
Blue Fever won the judges second place, and Audience Choice first place titles. Blue Fever is a "Netflix for women" which distributes video content for millennial women via both its web site and short snckable text messages.
Several panels features investors, accelerator heads and more giving advice to startup founders and entrepreneurs.
THANK YOU!
Thanks speakers for sharing your experience, insights, and giving informative and inspiring talks. Thanks panel organizers for putting together an array of diverse speakers and topics including blockchain, investing, content, Influencers, AR/VR and more. Thanks moderators for ensuring lively conversations where everyone is heard.
Thanks to gold sponsor TeleSign, whose co-founder Stacy Stubblefield (photo right) spoke on our Women Founders panel on Womens Day Thursday. Stacy discussed how she helped grow TeleSign from an idea to a company with more than 300 worldwide employees. TeleSign helps companies with their security, and is the leader in two-factor authentification. TeleSign was recently acquired by BICS. TeleSign also presented the closing party. The Closing Party featured demos by VRScout, and performances by Polartropica and Elijah, arranged by Planet LA.

Thanks Greenberg Glusker, our lanyard sponsor. Greenberg Glusker also featured speaker Jesse Saivar, who spoke on the Video Content and Monetization panel with executives from Jukin Media, Twitch, Machinima, and more.
Thanks to panel sponsors: HIRED presented the Hiring Secrets for Startups panel. ProVisors presented the How to Hire a Local Professional panel.
Thanks to CTRL Collective for hosting at your three gorgeous LA locations in Playa Vista, Downtown LA and Pasadena, with your amazing friendly and logistics-wizards events team.
Thanks Kluge for your amazing branding and graphics for our SBF banners, posters, website and SBF VR experience.
Thanks Etech Solution which is our name badge - registration angel, with a super efficient registration system and on-the-spot name badge printing for walk-ups, eliminating registration bottlenecks and lines.

Thanks to our volunteers for your energy and can do enthusiasm helping attendees.
Thanks inkind sponsors for sharing your tasty treats and beverages with us, including High Brew Coffee, KIND snacks, Burt's Bees, SnackNation, Country Archer, and more. 
And thanks to attendees for great questions and helping each other out. We hope you continue follow up with awesome people you met over the next few weeks, to help your projects, businesses, and our tech community grow!
See you at Silicon Beach Fest 2018!

HODL = Hold On For Dear Life! Buy and hold Bitcoin rather than daytrade said speakers at our Digital LA - Bitcoin Blockchain panel. Speakers included Steve Beauregard of Bloq, Michael Terpin of BitAngels, and ICO marketing and PR consultant, Mark Jeffrey of Guardian Circle, on his ICO road show; and Jason Robert of HelloSugoi, which uses blockchain for tickets and events. See article and video. We discussed how to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, how blockchain is poised to disrupt multiple industries beyond currency, and how to launch and market an ICO without getting into trouble. See articleand video. 



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