TBC
Geneva
25 February – 27 February 2009
Lift, the international conference exploring social implications of new technology, will hold its fourth annual European edition in Geneva, Switzerland.
This conference brings together researchers, inventors, investors, and thought leaders in business, government, academia and non-profits for three days of workshops, presentations, art installations, and networking events.
“This year’s theme is ‘Where has the future gone: from the science fiction of the past to the reality of today.’ We were told the future would be about mechanization, computerization, flying cars, and robots. What did and did not happen? What can we learn from the past predictions that never materialized in order to better look at our future?” explains Laurent Haug, the founder of both Lift Europe and Lift Asia in Korea.
Each year since 2006, the Lift conference is organized to understand and imagine tomorrow’s society. This year, to better predict the future, the LIFT team decided to reflect on the past and emphasize the need for foresight in both the academic and the professional world.
What may we learn from our poor past predictions? How do we avoid repeating similar mistakes? What can we learn from all these sociotechnological fantasies which have never materialized? These are just a few of the questions Lift09 will pose to spark reflection, discussion, and action.
This year’s Lift conference brings to Geneva more than twenty internationally renown
speakers including Vincent Cerf, the father of the Internet; Baba Wamé, a researcher who studied the impact of dating websites on African society; Patrick Gyger, director of the science-fiction museum La Maison d'Ailleurs; Juliana Rotich author, editor, and digital activist with Global Voices Online and Ushahidi; Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Laboratory at MIT; Clive van Heerden, creative director at Philips; and James Gillies,
CERN spokesperson and historian of the invention of the World Wide Web.
In addition, Lift will host an open program that gives a chance to all participants to speak out and take the initiative to organize an activity. The propositions can either be workshops, open stage or discussions allowing guests to present their work in a given space.
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