AUSTIN, Texas

Government, the private sector and non-profits should work together to apply technology to address the nation’s problems and to enhance civic engagement, said President Barack Obama, delivering the keynote Friday at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive technology conference here.

The first sitting president ever to address the conference, he said if we pull together, “There’s no problem we face in this country that’s not solvable.”

His address was in the form of an interview with Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, who brought up the recent controversy between Apple Inc. and the FBI over smartphone encryption. President Obama noted that privacy must sometimes be sacrificed to an extent for the public good, such as security searches at airports, but on the other hand he did not like the idea of the government having “willy-nilly” access to people’s smartphones.

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