If you're interested in buildings which can "talk" with each others, Yang Soo-In's presentation is spot on. His speech about the "living city" is about the sensors which disappear into the urban fabric and it allows building to communicate information about their local conditions to a network of other buildings. Yang’s work is very interesting as it shows how the city can be seen as a research lab.

If your interested in buildings which can "talk" with each others, Yang Soo-In's presentation is spot on. His speech about the "living city" is about the sensors which disappear into the urban fabric and it allows building to communicate information about their local conditions to a network of other buildings. Yang’s work is very interesting as it shows how the city can be seen as a research lab.

Jeffrey Huang, professor at the Media and Design Lab (Swiss Institute of Technology, Lausanne) addresses the merging of the digital and the physical in the context of near future cities. Through different projects he conducted, he exemplifies how interactive technologies can transform our physical environment to foster better communities.

Jeffrey Huang, professor at the Media and Design Lab (Swiss Institute of Technology, Lausanne) addresses the merging of the digital and the physical in the context of near future cities. Through different projects he conducted, he exemplifies how interactive technologies can transform our physical environment to foster better communities.

Bruce Sterling, science-fiction and tech journalist - and Lift's "big thinker in residence" - talks about the implications of money digitization. His though-provoking presentation deals with how virtual money systems are the financial services for the new urban poor.

"When you are working on cell phones, when you are working on the web, when you are working on electronic money and payment systems, you need to think: What if my user is a North-Korean"

How would I do this differently if I knew my user was from Pyongyang, that his regime had collapsed, that his economy had collapsed, he was completely bewildered, and he had never seen a cell phone or a computer in his life, and I intended to make him a productive and happy fellow citizen in ten years, what kind of technology would I give that person, what kind of trading system, economic system?”