Lift Conference 2008: Sessions

Online environments

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - 09:15

Tech journalist and science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling will open the conference with a "state of the [technological] world address", a 30' overview of what happened in the previous year that struck him as pertinent, interesting and curious.

Pierre Bellanger, CEO and founder of french media group Skyrock will give us his perspectives on the evolution of new media and social software.

Jonathan Cabiria will talk about relationships in virtual environments and social justice. He will explore how platforms such as Second Life can be recommended as activity for marginalized people, especially if they suffer from issues such as loneliness, depression, isolation, pessimism and/or low self-esteem.

New trends in gaming practices: user-generated content and the importance of social software

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - 11:15

Robin Hunicke is both an academic and practitioner and works for Electonic Arts. She is designing games for the Nintendo Wii (such as My Sims). Robin will describe new trends in gaming practices: user-generated content and the importance of social software. Then Guy Vardi, from Oberon Media, will talk about casual gaming and the evolutions in that field.

Paul Barnett, the Creative Director for Electronic Arts Mythic, oversees the design of the upcoming MMORPG Warhammer Online. A pioneer in MUDs and MMO game design, Paul will describe evolution of the massive multiplayer environments.

Bruno Bonnell, founder and former CEO of Infogrames, will discuss the implications and opportunities of robotics in the leisure industry.

User experience: why observing users is important and how this brings insights for designing future products

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - 11:30

We will have two anthropologists, one working for Nokia in Tokyo (Younghee Jung) and another for Intel in Seattle (Genevieve Bell). Both will show us why observing users of technologies is important and how this brings insights for designing future products.

Paul Dourish, a researcher from University of California Irvine will then criticize how such results from anthropological studies are often translated into "implications for design", missing relevant insights from anthropologist's works.

  • Paul Dourish
    Professor of Informatics Coming from USA Working at Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at UC Irvine
  • Younghee Jung
    senior design manager Coming from Japan Working at Nokia

Stories

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - 14:00

This track is aimed at hearing the stories of entrepreneurs and communicators, their successes and failures as well as their motivations.

Rafi Haladjian, founder of Minitel start-ups and internet/wi-fi providers in France will tell us about his latest venture: Violet, a french tech company, has designed the Wi-Fi and RFID enabled rabbit called Nabaztag.

Eric Favre who is the co-inventor of Nespresso will tell us more about "intrapreneur" innovation and the story behind coffee capsules.

Feminist, political activist, translator, publisher and filmmaker Jasmina Tesanovic will give a presentation about blogging, genders and politics exemplified by Balkan examples.

A glimpse of Asia: a special track dedicated to technologies in Asia

Thursday, February 7, 2008 - 16:00

With LIFT going to Asia, we want to share the ideas we have been most impressed with, with you. To do so, we have a special track dedicated to technologies in Asia.

Marc Laperrouza is a researcher at EPFL specializing on new technologies in China. Marc will be talking about the current state and latest trends in chinese telecommunication.

Heewon Kim, a researcher from Yonsei University in Seoul will present us the highlights of her academic research topic "how teenagers use social software in South Korea".

Gen Kanai will give the last talk of the session. Business developer for Mozilla Asia and director of marketing and partner relations for Mozilla Japan, Gen's speech will be an overview of the open source situation in Asia.

  • Gen Kanai
    Director of Asia Business Development, Working at Mozilla Corporation
  • Heewon Kim
    Researcher Coming from South Korea Working at Yonsei University
  • Marc Laperrouza
    Lecturer and pro bono activist Coming from Switzerland Working at UNIL / EPFL / IMD / Evian Group / bono pro

New frontiers: new boundaries being questioned by new technological developments

Friday, February 8, 2008 - 09:00

This track is aimed at showing what are the new boundaries (ethical, cultural, physical) being questioned by new technological developments.

Kevin Warwick, the British "cyborg" researcher who implanted a microchip in his body will tell us about his pioneering experiments. He had a neuro-surgical device implanted into the median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer. The aim of these experiment series is to assess the use of latest technologies for disabled people.

Then Henri Markram from EPFL will present the "blue brain" project that he is conducting in cooperation with IBM: it's objective is to the deploy massive computational resources to simulate the functioning of brain cells.

Holm Friebe from the socialistic-capitalist joint-venture Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur in Berlin will show new forms of cooperation and collaborative work in todays' society.

Mieke Gerritzen will talk about the different views on visual and natural culture that new networks brought to us.

  • Henry Markram
    Co-Director Coming from Switzerland Working at Brain Mind Institute (EPFL)
  • Holm Friebe
    Director Coming from Germany Working at Zentrale Intelligenz Agentur
  • Kevin Warwick
    Professor of Cybernetics Coming from UK Working at University of Reading
  • Mieke Gerritzen
    Founder Coming from Netherlands Working at All Media Foundation

Web and enterprises: how the web is reshuffling work practices

Friday, February 8, 2008 - 14:00

The purpose of this track is to show how the web is reshuffling work practices. David Sadigh (IC Agency) will show us how organizations can focus on user retention rather than acquisition to boost trafic, and David Marcus (Zong) will talk about the new business models opened by mobile channels.

Kevin Marks from Google will continue by telling us more Open Social, a common framework for building social applications across many websites.

Finally, François Grey from the CERN will give us a presentation about volunteer computing and what this technology means more widely for society: for the Web, for science, and leisure.

  • David Sadigh
    Managing Partner Coming from Switzerland Working at IC-Agency
  • François Grey
    Visiting Professor Coming from China Working at Tsinghua University, Beijing
  • Kevin Marks
    Developer Advocate Coming from USA Working at Google

Foresight: how organizations can identify and explore latest trends?

Friday, February 8, 2008 - 16:00

This track will be all about the future and present how organizations can identify and explore latest trends.

Scott Smith (Changeist) and William Cockayne (Stanford, Change research) will both describe concrete foresight methodologies and illustrate them with case studies. And Francesco Cara (Design Strategist at Nokia) will provide us insights about the trends in mobile and online behaviors he finds most relevant.