Lift is a series of events built around a community of pioneers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social implications of new technologies. Each conference is a chance to turn changes into opportunities by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meeting the people who drive them.

Table of contents

• Lift concept, what is Lift?
• Team, who does what
• Talks, all our talks online and free
• Speakers policy, what we ask from our speakers
• Participants policy, it's not easy to attend either ;)
• Post-conference surveys, see what the people say
• Lift Posters
• Contact us, for all the rest

Concept

Lift is a series of events built around a community of doers and thinkers who get together in Europe and Asia to explore the social impact of new technologies. Each conference is your chance to turn changes into opportunities, by anticipating the major shifts ahead, and meeting the people who drive them.

Each event is built around three key ingredients:

• • talks and workshops given by some of the moment's brightest and most inspiring people. The program is divided in two parts: the official program (15 hours of talks, managed by the Lift team) and the open program (50+ hours of workshops/talks/discussions, managed by the community via an online proposition and voting system).
• • artistic activities created to facilitate networking and inspiration, allowing attendees to network, play, create, and keep their mind fresh. This part of the conference is called the Lift Experience.
• • social events where lifters get together around our legendary fondue or a traditional Korean meal.

Lift attendees are coming from the private (entrepreneurs, managers, investors, researchers), academic (students, professors, researchers), media and art (designers, artists, journalists) and international (NGOs, UN agencies) sectors.

Goals

• • Turn change into opportunities
  Change can be a threat if you do not anticipate it in time. By coming to Lift you will get a preview of the big changes that will impact you, your job, your organization, your life, so you can prepare and get ready.
• • Inspire
  Like some of the most creative organizations in the world, we believe that one of the best way to generate new ideas is via cross-polinization, an horrible word for a fundamental truth: you will get more inspiration from an event featuring speakers from diverse backgrounds that at a professional convention where everybody basically agrees on everything. Come and listen to ethnologists, entrepreneurs, artists, designers, or even the webmaster of the Vatican. They all have some ideas you will be able to reuse in your daily life!
• • Connect
  What's an idea without the persons behind? Usually not much. At Lift we focus on bringing together all the participants, whatever their background and role in the event. We treat everybody the same and that creates amazing networking so that you can meet the people behind an idea that interests you.

Values

Since the creation of the conference we follow a certain number of values. The most important ones are:

• • Independence
  Lift is an independent organization, and the editorial team is completely separated from the partnerships team. If a person is on stage it is because we think he/she is relevant, not because we received a payment or a sponsoring. You can not pay to speak at Lift, and pitches are not allowed with two notable exceptions: non-profit organizations (lift Amnesty International at Lift06, Wikipedia at Lift07, and WattWatt at Lift08 and Lift Asia 08) are allowed to promote their projects, and during the open program pitches are allowed if voted by the community. We also get no commission from the hotels/restaurants/airlines recommended to our participants so you can be sure we are recommending the best we found, not those who give us more money.
• • Diversity
  Lift is committed to bringing diverse points of views, and we try to invite speakers from all continents as well as a large number of women speakers.
• • Openness
  Lift is flat, open and collaborative. We treat everybody the same and ask our guests to act likewise.

Locations

Lift has grown from a local conference into a series of events happening in:

• Geneva, Switzerland
• Jeju, Korea
• Marseille, France

We are always open to new adventures, and if you would like to run a Lift in your country please get in touch with us!

Team

The event is organized by a team located in Switzerland and Korea, with the help of an international advisory board.

Producers

Laurent Bolli, designer
Jinwoo Choi, Lift Asia co-CEO
Laurent Haug, founder & ceo
Heather Lee, Lift Asia assistant
Nicolas Nova, editorial manager
Sylvie Reinhard, project manager
Steven Ritchey, editorial advisor and star moderator
Channy Yun, Asia editorial advisor

Advisory board

Julian Bleecker, Nokia Design
Bruno Bonnell, Robopolis
Pierre Chappaz, Wikio
William Cockayne, Change Research
Xavier Comtesse, Avenir Suisse
Bruno Giussani, Writer/blogger/entrepreneur
Adam Greenfield
François Grey, CERN
Jeffrey Huang, EPFL
Daniel Kaplan, FING
Beth Krasna, independent board member
Jaewoong Lee, Founder of Daum
Joanne Lee, writer and entrepreneur
Bernard Rappaz, TSR
Bruce Sterling, Writer and futurist
Jasmina Tesanovic, Publisher and Filmmaker
Guido Van Nispen, Veronica

Hall of fame:

These people were involved in LIFT and left to pursue glorious careers and projects all around the world!
John Staehli, Raluca Dan, Cristiana Bolli-Freitas, Marc-Olivier Peyer, Jean-Daniel Sciboz, Nicolas Dengler, Roberto Ortelli, Victoria Visser, Ellen Wallace, Nicholas Wolff.

Talks

Lift talks are available for free at videos.liftconference.com.

^{Cory Doctorow at Lift06}

Speakers policy

We have a certain number of principles guiding the invitations of speakers. Here are the most important ones:

• • Speakers are asked not to do any commercial pitch, and focus on ideas sharing.
• • Our editorial team is completely independent of the sponsoring team. Buying stage time is not possible at LIFT.
• • We once heard someone say that "Lift is the conference for which speakers do their slides". That is because we ask our speakers to give a talk they have never given elsewhere to ensure fresh ideas are presented to the audience.
• • LIFT speakers are not paid to speak. They travel to the conference to share their passion about what they are doing, and meet amazing people.
• • Our policy is to never invite the same speaker two years in a row. Sometimes, the speakers who came up first in the post-conference survey are invited the next year but then in a different capacity (on a panel, to run a workshop)
• • We ask speakers to be present during the three days of the conference. We try to avoid inviting speakers who will only come for the duration of their speech as LIFT is first and foremost about creating networking between all the participants.
• • In the interest of all the participants, we are pretty strict with the time allotted to presentations and will as smoothly as possible *g* cut a presentation that goes beyond the time limit.
• • Speakers agree that their talk will be recorded put on LIFT videos for free download and viewing.
• • We try to pay plane tickets and hotels to speakers who need it and do not work for large organizations who can cover the costs.
• • Despite the fact it is not always an easy task (think about obtaining a Swiss visa for an African speaker) we put a lot of efforts in trying to have a program that reflects the world's diversity.

Participants policy

As for the speakers, participating in Lift has a few rules. Lifters agree to:

• • come and participate with an open and respectful attitude, especially towards foreign ideas and cultures they might get in touch with at the events.
• • provide constructive feedback at the end of each events to allow the format to be improved for the next edition. Many of the innovations you see in Lift (open stage, questions system, venture night, etc.) are direct consequences of the feedback we receive. Tell us, we care and listen!
• • follow the no-promotion policy by not trying to promote oneself via questions and not bringing marketing material to the conference. Lift's non-commercial ambiance is appreciated by all and a fragile and precious asset, and any aggressive/pirate marketing tactic will be counter productive as the community will not appreciate it. Smile, show others why you are relevant, that's promotion that works at Lift.
• • make sure they are allowed to publish the material they captured at Lift before publishing it. Be aware that some speakers ask us - very rarely - not to put their slides or talk online. We live in an era of transparency, nobody can control their content, bla bla bla we know that. But it does not cost much to respect a moral engagement towards someone who worked hours to show you his or her ideas so why not do it.

Post-conference survey

Every year, an independent company (Benchpoint) runs a satisfaction survey on the participants of the conference, published in total transparency on the conference website. Here are the past surveys:

• 2009 survey: 90% of attendees had a good or excellent overall appreciation of LIFT09 with “networking”, “learning” and “exchanging” mentioned as the greatest benefits of participation. The majority of attendees agreed that LIFT09 provided them with interesting information and influenced their opinions on the usage of emerging technologies. 98% of attendees met new people at LIFT09 with most people meeting between 1 - 10 persons.
  Full report in PDF (600kb)




• 2008 survey: "89% of attendees had a good or excellent overall appreciation of
  LIFT08 with "networking", "learning" and "exchanging" mentioned as the greatest benefits of participation. The majority of attendees agreed that LIFT08 provided them with interesting information and influenced their opinions on the usage of emerging technologies. 96% of attendees met new people at LIFT08 with most people meeting between 1 - 10 persons. Key quality factors of LIFT08 were rated by attendees with "networking" and "administration" rated higher than "programme quality" and "venue". The most popular presentation selected by attendees was "Cyborg" by Kevin Warwick."
  Full report in PDF (340kb)




• Lift Asia 08 survey: "92% of attendees had a good or excellent overall appreciation of
  Lift Asia 08, with the social activities, presentations and networking being the most appreciated elements of the conference."
  Full report in PDF (396kb)




• 2007 survey: "83% of attendees had a good or excellent overall appreciation of LIFT07 with “networking” or “learning” mentioned as the greatest benefits of participation. The majority of attendees agreed that LIFT07 provided them with interesting information and influenced their opinions on the usage of emerging technologies. 96% of attendees met new people at LIFT07 with most people meeting between 1-5 persons."
  Full report in PDF (340kb)




• 2006 survey: "LIFT06 was assessed as a big success by most attendees ñ 93% plan to attend LIFT07. According to the attendees, LIFT06 was successful in providing information and influencing their attitudes about emerging technology. One third of attendees saw the main benefit of attending LIFT06 as networking and are looking towards more facilitated networking at LIFT07. The quality of the presentations varied considerably for many attendees and a different selection process may be appropriate for LIFT07. In terms of the conference format, attendees suggested more interactive sessions and workshops around the conference. LIFT06 was successful in connecting people and provoking ongoing discussions amongst attendees and beyond the conference. "
  Full report in PDF (720kb)

Lift posters

You can find an archive of the Lift posters here.

Contact

Anything else? Contact us!