Bearing in mind the current financial tumoil (I have more money than Iceland - though that doesn't say very much) may be a LIFT09 session on suriving the downturn would be interesting. There's going to be a shake-out in conferences too, with the "biggies" in danger of imploding rather like Comdex did a while ago. I'd be happy if CES went away. LIFT, on the other hand, continually proves that Laurent and the team understand what the "market" wants - not too big so it loses intimacy, not to small so as to be able to make a difference.

I'd be happy to share some experiences of running an African Media lab project in Benin - as community FM tries to migrate to community media. Its the new form of public media. It has some funding challenges in some countries, but the thinking behind it is good. There's a lot we can learn from African entrepreneurs.

Datestamp on the preview says I wrote this on Jan 1st 1970. What a bright lad I was. Although I confess it is October 10 2008 when I bash this out.

Read liftconference.com/news for the latest information!
Community posts - added by registered users here - will still be displayed in that space.

Welcome to the new LIFT website! To fully enjoy the new website empty your cache or ctrl-refresh.
We took your feedback seriously and created a new website that is easier to navigate and supports multi events (LIFT Asia in September, LIFT09 in February). We also structured the blog in announcements and stories to make it easier for you to keep track of the latest announcements concerning upcoming events.

More content, new features as well as a fresh design will follow in the next weeks, so stay tuned :)

A very warm welcome to the four new members of the LIFT conference advisory board:

Bruce Sterling
SF writer, journalist, essayist and commentator, Bruce is is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work, which helped define the cyberpunk genre. A tech journalist, Sterling also launched another movement: the Viridian Greens, which focuses on how industrial design could be used to respond to global climate change.

Adam Greenfield
Soon to be Nokia's Head of Design Direction, Adam is an internationally-recognized writer, user experience consultant and critical futurist, having worked for clients ranging from global concerns like Toyota, Capgemini, and Sony to local nonprofits. He is also the notorious author of "Everyware", the the first book on ubiquitous computing suitable for general audiences.

Jasmina Tesanovic
Jasmina is a feminist, political activist (Women in Black, Code Pink), translator, publisher and filmmaker. She is the author of Diary of a Political Idiot, a war diary written during the 1999 Kosovo War and widely distributed on the Internet.

François Grey
François is in charge of outreach and public relations for CERN's IT Department. A regular contributor to the Economist, François was in charge of organizing the CERN Computing Colloquium, a series of conference that welcomed the likes of Mark Shuttleworth or Richard Stallman to the CERN, the birthplace of the web.

For years, in the "North-West" (that is industrialized countries - usually understood as North vs. South and West vs. East), we've been babbling about the "digital gap" that is supposedly the new line of division, usually understood as running along that of economical and political development. We often have quite a simplistic idea of the situation, imagining countries that are like technological deserts, on top of being devoid of everything essentials for a normal life (that is one car per family, two TV-sets per household, all with at least 40 channels, and 4-weeks vacations in the Bahamas or in the Swiss Alps per years). We tend to forget the forest of satellite dishes that are ornementing most cities and even village buildings in what we used (politcally) incorrectly call "third world" countries. And a recent article from the Mail & Guardian, translated in French in the Courrier International, just reminds us how wrong we often are about the appropriation of "our" modern technologies by people in these countries.

Younghee Jung, Senior Design Manager at Nokia, recently moved to London from Tokyo. Learn more about Younghee's groundbreaking work by viewing her LIFT08 video.

Many will remember her presentation in the User Experience Track where she shared research performed in shanty towns around the world. The purpose was to capture input from users with a view to analyzing trends for future development.

Younghee's well-known colleague and Principal Researcher at Nokia, Jan Chipchase, will be attending LIFT08 in Korea. We'll be back with more about Jan's contribution soon.

Every year in April we know if we did a good job or not, if you guys liked the event or not. We anxiously await Glenn O'Neil's post-conference survey he has been doing for LIFT for the past three years (see LIFT06 and LIFT07 surveys).

As usual the community massively answered our call for feedback (thanks to the 272 attendees who took the time to answer), and as usual you were kind enough to give us a good grade, with 89% of attendees having a good or excellent overall appreciation (and nobody called LIFT08 very poor which I'm quite proud of). FULL REPORT HERE (pdf).

The report indicates we achieved some of our main goals (networking, learning and exchanging) with room for improvement on a few things like the venue. Some formats will be improved, like discussions (we really need a more quiet place, you will have that in Asia and next year) and Open Stage (I hope more LIFTers will get involved when voting time comes).

Read the full report here (and be sure to check page 5 to see the evolution over the three editions), and I will soon post my thoughts and the things that will change as a consequence of all the feedback. Thanks to all, and congrats to the team who deserves a big praise after such a plebiscite :)

The LIFT08 Asia program is coming along and we're happy announce the main topics we will talk about on September 4-5-6:

Beyond the Web we know what's exciting on the web from the near future, what comes after web2.0?

Online for better society: how web technologies will help shaping a more inclusive society and take advantage of the world's diversity.

Towards a Networked City: the new digital layers provided by ICTs on contemporary cities are now a reality, what does that mean for its inhabitants? What changes can we expect? How will ubiquitous computing influence the way we live?

From robots to networked objects: current robots are going beyond the traditional anthropomorphism and start to communicate. What will we see? What's hot in that domain that we will soon see all around us?

The near future of social worlds: social platforms on the Web and Massive Multi-Player games are now merging in a new category of digital entertainment platforms with new business models and screens such as mobile phones. What does that mean for users? What does the usage of such platform tell us about new forms of sociality?

Techno-nomadic life: the wireless and mobile technologies have freed us from the tyranny of "place", but what are the new constraints? What are the new behavior? Is the mobile web going through the same process as the Web of the 90s?

Does money go virtual? Recent changes in the digitalisation of money are less perceptible than more glamorous technologies, but they are of considerable importance. New banking solutions and money circulation practices are around.

Sustainable development/green technologies (in partnership with WattWatt).

For the people who enjoyed the "lift experience" video and for those who haven't seen it yet... i'm currently working on an interactive documentary installation... and looking for an open-source programmer (pure data + dyne or ubuntu), french or swiss would be easier.
My artistic works and researchs deal with poetry, technology and social issues.
this new work is an open-source icon and a documentary about computer history.
feel free to send CV or questions at:
benjamin.pothier (at) gmail.com

After a lot of travel which resulted in slow blogging I have some important news regarding LIFT Asia. We have a location, a theme, a format, and partners!

^{Picture from a recent trip to Jeju University}

• JEJU
it will be Jeju. We decided to hold the conference on the island because it is really the most beautiful place there is (you will like the view on the pacific from the rest area, breath taking). It is one hour from Seoul - so we will ask you to travel a bit more - but it is worth it.

• BEYOND BORING BROWSERS
We want to have a main theme for the event, and we want to ask a simple question: what happens beyond the browser? Where will the next revolutions come from? Robots? Mobile? Ubiquitous computing? Virtual worlds? We will explore many of these fields with diverse points of views from all over the world, with a focus on Asian speakers of course. Robert Scoble, Jan Chipchase and Dan Dubno have already saved the dates and will be with us.

• FORMAT
We pushed the date one day (4-6 instead of 3-5 of Sept.) because we want to use less week-days and facilitate the life of those who will have to take some time off to attend. We will have seven sessions, an open afternoon (dedicated to workshops, discussions, demos, etc...), two evenings and time for cultural activities as there are tons of things to see on the island.

• PARTNERS
We already have five partners! The Jeju University, Jeju Knowledge Industry Promotion Agency, Daum of course, and the geneva based WattWatt and Alptic who will travel to the other side of the world with us to make the conference happen.