Actually there are many Lift conferences, the longest standing being the Long Island Forum For Technology. These days we get a lot of alerts in our ego-search system (monitoring keyword #lift10) and as you will notice, the various Lift have very, very different focuses ;)

^{London International Festival of Theatre}

^{Lift10, "training young leaders to stand up for Jesus.}

^{Long Island Forum For Technology}

One of the upcoming Lift@home will happen in Vienna on March 18, an ambitious event gathering 100 participants to talk about enabling changes and innovation in society. Join us for our first Austrian event!

The lift@Austria team is happy to announce a distinguished mix of speakers to drill down the theme "Enable" from a wide range of perspectives: Florian Brody from Silicon Valley, internationally acclaimed digital media specialist, Stefan Camenzind, architect and designer of the Google Labs in Zurich, Felix Oldenburg, CEO of Ashoka Germany, the biggest social entrepreneur network worldwide and many more!

The entire 3-days are designed as one piece. The first day will be devoted to explore existing enablers, such as the HUB, StartUp Weekend and the metalab. The insights from this exploration tour will be fed into the the second day, where we start with selected speakers to frame the topic of the conference. Thereafter, you can expect a full day of intense workshops, trying to work out the different dimensions of Enabling. The results will be illustrated and displayed in a gallery.

For more information, go to the website and read the propositions or see for yourself how we want to reward excellent input/people.

Cheers!
Thomas for the organizing team!

Lift10 is in 3 months time, and we are posting profiles of the confirmed speakers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

We are happy to announce Mercedes Bunz as one of our Lift10 speakers. Mercedes will be speaking during our session entitled "The old new media": Newspapers are struggling, TV is not sure of what the future holds. What is at stake nowadays when informing, reaching and involving people?

Mercedes is an experienced and optimistic new media strategist for journalism currently working as the Guardian’s reporter for digital media. As a motivating managing editor experienced in print and online journalism she has been editor-in-chief of the online version of the Berlin-based daily newspaper Tagesspiegel. Before, she was the editor-in-chief of zitty, the oldest and best-known Berlin city-guide magazine. Mercedes also co-founded de:bug, one of the leading magazines for electronic culture in german-speaking countries. She holds a PhD in media science and is a visionary writer and speaker on new technology, creative industries and society.

Her last book was about the history of the internet (in German), and got published at the German Kadmos Kulturverlag tracing the transformation of media from saving to distribution. She is currently working on a new one, and yes journalism and the internet occur.

We're excited to listen to Mercedes speak in May. Have a look at her website or her blog on the Guardian for more information.

Upcoming's interesting and popular events of 2009

2009 was quite a year. Join the Upcoming team in looking back at the events that made it a fun, educational, and inspirational year. Whether you rubbed shoulders with tech innovators or indulged your taste buds at a hip food festival, we hope you had an excellent 2009. Here is a selection of interesting events from 2009. Enjoy. [...]

6. LIFT09
Wednesday February 25, 2009 - Friday February 27, 2009
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 consequences 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.

This really makes me want to go to SXSW (#1) and Frontiers of Interaction (#5)!

Thanks for the honor Upcoming team :)

Update: here is Lift10 on Upcoming in case you missed it!

We have some really nice workshops scheduled for Lift10. I believe the quality of a conference is not in the speakers, but in the whole audience (which of course includes the speakers), and our open program is a testimonial of how rich our community is. See current propositions, and don't forget that if you are registered for the conference you can also become a speaker and run a workshop!

Lift10 is in less than 4 months, and we are posting profiles of the confirmed speakers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

We're very much looking forward to welcoming Jean Burgess as one of our speakers this year at Lift10. Jean will be speaking during our session entitled "What's up with on-line communities?"

Jean is a postdoctoral research fellow based in the Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Her background is in music, cultural studies and media studies, and her current research concentrates on everyday media creation and use in relation to technological change, both past and present. As part of her work she regularly designs and facilitates co-creative media workshops for community groups and organisations.

In addition, she co-authored "YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture" with Joshua Green at Cambridge Polity Press. People interested in her work should have a look at the following interview by Henry Jenkins

At Lift 2010, she will address on-line participation and user-generated content: who participates? who doesn’t? why? what are the limits and the opportunities?

We're looking forward to listening to her in May.

In an effort to make your participation in Lift10 even simpler, you now have the option of booking a hotel room when you buy your ticket. Simply use the appropriate drop down menu, choose a package, and we will make the booking for you. It will cost you a little bit more (we charge a fee for booking management and credit card processing) but in one easy step you will be sure to have a roof over your head during the conference.

^{After you have chosen the appropriate conference ticket, choose one of the proposed hotel packages.}

If you have already bought your Lift10 ticket, don't hesitate to contact us about your hotel situation, or use the city's special Lift10 booking system. And don't forget to check couchsurfing options if you want to go the alternative way!

If you are one of our dear Lift10 participants, and haven't yet booked your hotel room, please do so when you have a few minutes.

As an international convention hub, Geneva is always a very busy place. But this year Lift falls in the same week as a large international aviation expo with 10,000 participants. Therefore we recommend that you book your hotel as soon as possible.

We have put some rooms on hold in a selection of convenient hotels for you. These options expire a few weeks before the conference, depending on the hotel, so the quicker you book, the greater your choice :)

Below is a quick overview of the hotels. Geneva Tourism has set up a dedicated Lift10 booking website through which you can conveniently make your bookings. You can access these offers on this link in English and in French

Most of these hotels are close to the Geneva Main Station, which is a 10-minute tram ride from the conference venue (the CICG).

Geneva Tourism is happy to help should you have any issues using the system, or should you wish to extend your stay beyond the conference dates :) They can be contacted on:
reservation@geneve-tourisme.ch
fax : +41 22 909 70 21
tel : +41 22 909 70 20

Yves Cretegny is joining Lift as CEO starting on February 1st. This is major news as Yves brings the experience and qualifications required to take us to the next level.

Since late 2007 and our first Asian conference, it became clear that Lift was turning into more than the side project it was in the beginning. From a conference with 350 participants in 2006, Lift has developed into three large annual events in Europe and Asia, a decentralized events program called Lift@home, an international and very active community of 5500+ members, etc etc.

^{The timeline of Lift conferences and projects, from 2006 to 2009.}

In the process, Lift became a little group as our legal structure adapted to our different projects. Lift developed into Lift Association, Lift Conférence, Lift Asia and the newly launched Lift lab. We hired several people in Korea, built a team with the Fing in France, took some office space, hired a couple of interns, a part time webmaster and even bought a plant for our office ;)

As the team and structure grew, so did the accompanying challenges in terms of organization, professionalization, finance, cash flow planning, human resources, and legal structure. Each early team member was suddenly confronted with growing responsibilities outside of their original focus, and something had to be done to stabilize and anchor Lift for the future.

^{Yves at Lift09 during the Ozwe QB1 casting. Photo by dgbp.ch}

A couple of months ago, we started discussing with Yves Cretegny - then CFO of Geneva's largest convention center - about our CEO position. It quickly became clear that Yves could bring a very important and complementary perspective to our mission. He has a rare mix of competence and experience: a former manager at Andersen Business Consulting (where I was also working as a consultant), Yves has helped all kinds of organizations grow, organize, focus, and adapt to new challenges and economic conditions. In 2000, he became the CFO and head of innovation at Palexpo, where he worked on the organization of several conventions, among them the 750'000 visitors strong Geneva Motor Show. Since 2008, Yves has been attending Lift. He knows where we are heading, and recognizes the potential our project has. Yves is also the friend of several friends, an important element in a human-centric structure like Lift. We met, discussed, tried to put ourselves in situation to see if things would work out. And on February 1st, Yves will become our new CEO :)

His mission will be to take Lift to the next level, growing our community while retaining our values and original purpose of inspiring and connecting pioneers to turn innovation into opportunities. He will oversee the transition from a team organizing a conference in Geneva to a team supporting several local organizers, working with a community of thinkers and doers from around the world. Yves will work to make Lift a stable and sustainable project, with regular funding streams and a strong community of partners. He will develop value-adding partnerships that respect our original belief that it is essential to separate the editorial from the marketing messages. Last but not least, Yves will also work with us at Lift lab - the company that originally launched Lift conference as a a spin off - and invest his consulting experience to further develop the offers and client base.

With Yves stepping up into his new role, Sylvie Reinhard will continue her work as COO to oversee our operations in Europe and Asia with the help of Sarah Suter. Nicolas Nova will focus on the editorial management of the conference, working on identifying the people and trends that really matter. On my side, I will now focus on the areas that interest me most: the format and strategy of the events, the development and animation of our community, public and partner relations. With less operational responsibilities, I hope to have more time to implement a larger part of my ideas and visions for Lift.

This is a very big step for us. We are very excited by the prospect of welcoming someone like Yves, to transition to a more professional and sustainable structure. The fact that someone with his experience and background left his job to join us is a very positive sign: the proof we are doing something positive, challenging and with a lot of potential. Another step in our short history, another occasion to thank all those of you who have helped make this project come true with your support, presence, advice, questions, comments, suggestions, and more! Thank you:)

Lift10 is in less than 4 months, and we are posting profiles of the confirmed speakers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

We're very excited to welcome Basile Zimmermann as one of our speakers this year at Lift10. Basile will be speaking during our session entitled "Stories" - our traditional session dedicated to inspiring stories from people with extraordinary projects and lives.

Basile is Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is a consultant for Swiss companies and political institutions on Chinese relations, and also does consulting work for an IT company. He works and publishes in the fields of Chinese studies, technology studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

For a preview - you can watch an interview by the Swiss National Television (TSR) in the second part of their series “History of Knowledge – Research, a passion”, focusing on rising stars of Swiss science, click here (in French).

His doctoral thesis about the impact of Western Technology on Chinese Culture can be downloaded here. And to read his papers in English you can click here.

We're looking forward to listening to him in May. You can read more about him on his LIFT profile.