LIFT09 is almost over. Again I enjoyed every last bit of it. Inspiring talks, great discussions, new friends and a travel plan (from Moscow to Beijing on a train - but not in winter ;).

The last couple of days we have collected (tagged and placed them on a map) a couple of places related to LIFT. You will find some of the places that the speakers mentioned: Patrick Gyger’s Maison d’Ailleurs, one of the green “no parking zones” in New York that Natalie Jeremijenko showed us or the Digital Water Pavilion in Zaragoza that Carlo Ratti spoke about.

We have also collected some places and stories for you to explore if you’re staying in Geneva another day. You could take a walk to the longest bench in the world and see if the official chestnut tree is already budding (which would mean winter’s over in Geneva) or maybe you’d like to kick back for an hour and relax in the sauna and hammam on Lac Leman or buy some good Swiss chocolate at Geneva’s best chocolate maker.

You can find the complete list of LIFT09 places here: http://www.tagcrumbs.com/placemarks/tagged/lift09. Feel free to add your findings with the LIFT09 tag as well.

Clive van Heerden is creative director of Philips ‘Design Probes’ program. The projects he leads there include amongst others the exploration of electronic textiles for emotional sensing and expression as well as electronic tattoos that transform with touch.

Philips Design Probes is a dedicated ‘far-future’ research initiative to track trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business. Emerging developments in five main areas are tracked - politics, economics, environment, technology and culture. The outcomes of this ‘far-future’ research are used to identify systemic shifts, with the aim of understanding ‘lifestyle’ post 2020. The main objective of this program is to stimulate the discussion and register feedback, challenging conventional ways of thinking to come up with concepts to stimulate debate.

On Friday afternoon, during the “New Frontiers” session, Clive will show us how to employ past technological failures to develop disruptive futures. For more information and to connect to Clive have a look at his LIFT page.

James Auger is a partner in the critical design practice Auger-Loizeau whose projects explore the role of technology as a mediator and modifier of the human experience in both contemporary and future societies. Their work has been exhibited and published globally over the past 8 years. He teaches on the Design Interactions course at the Royal College of Art in London and is currently undertaking a design practice based PhD looking into the role of robots in the home environment.

On their explorations into design for the near future they explored technology’s effect on human culture, behaviour and experience. A tooth implant that transmits sounds over the jaw-bone, a phone that blocks all other peripheral sensory distraction or several prototypes to augment animals are just some of the examples.

During the “Design thinking for the future” session on Friday, James will talk to us about the role designers can play in shaping our technological future. Find more info on James on his LIFT page or discover his projects on his website.

Patrick J. Gyger is a Swiss historian, curator and writer. In the 1990s he specialised in medieval studies. Since 1999, he has been the director of Maison d’Ailleurs (the “House of Elsewhere”), a Swiss museum.

With it’s over 60,000 books and thousands of pulp magazines it houses one of the world’s largest collections of literature on science fiction, utopia, and extraordinary journeys.

In 2008, Patrick opened the “Espace Jules Verne”, a wing of Maison d’Ailleurs dedicated to Jules Verne and extraordinary journeys. In the early 2000s, he was one of the co-managers of European Space Agency’s ITSF study – Innovative Technologies from Science Fiction for Space Applications – a research looking into Science Fiction to find ideas for space engineers. His most recent book is “Flying Cars or, Memories of a Dreamt Future”.

Patrick, together with Nicolas Nova, will kick off the conference on Thursday morning with his talk in the first “Change” session. We are very much looking forward to his talk on “Memoires of a magnificent future”. Find more info on Patrick on his LIFT profile.

Jörg Jelden is a senior trend analyst at Trendbuero – Consultancy for Social Change, in Hamburg and Beijing. His main field of interest is centered around Network Economy: How will the rise of the internet change our society? How will consumer behavior change? How will we do business tomorrow? What will be new business models to answer the changes?

Together with Prof. Peter Wippermann he produces the Trend Day. Every year in May 600 decision makers come together to discuss the most important topics with international acclaimed speakers like Muhammad Yunus, Richard Florida, Daniel Nissanoff, Howard Rheingold, Jimmy Wales etc. In cooperation with Interone Worldwide Joerg established InsightBench, a semantic research tool to analyse digitally published opinions and texts.

During his stay at Trendbuero´s Asia-Pacific office in Beijing Joerg examined The Future of Fake. He tried to find out, why fakes are so succesful, what they do differently and what brands can learn from the fake industry. This will also be the topic of his talk during the Stories session on Friday morning. Sounds interesting? Learn more about him on his LIFT page or on Trendbuero.

Dania was born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1979. She spent her first few years in San Diego, California. In 1987 she moved to Basel, Switzerland. She studied economy at University of Basel. After graduating with a Master in 2002, she worked as an audit and accounting professional for KPMG until 2007. Dania is one of the three co-founders and the CFO and COO of Amazee. We also interviewed Dania on what LIFT is for her and what she is expecting. Here’s what she said:

Why LIFT?
LIFT is THE Swiss Web Conference! It is a fantastic gathering of web entrepreneurs, thought-leaders, designers and more from many countries all sharing a passion for creativity in the world wide web. I visited LIFT for the first time in 2008 and was impressed by the creative atmosphere and the quality of the program, speakers and attendees. LIFT is about good people, a great spirit and that lifts LIFT above all other web conferences I’ve visited.

What Dania expects
I mainly go to LIFT because of the spirit and the people. I’m looking forward to spending some time with friends and colleagues and expect to meet new interesting people that will be of help for our business. I also expect to get inspired by some the the sessions and workshops and to have lots of fun :).

Together with Lucas Grolleau she created some lyrics for the LIFT song last year:
Lift is my kick
Lift is my paradise
Lift is love
Lift me up
I have the best time with my friends

You can find out more about Dania on the Amazee blog and on her LIFT profile.

Frank is a researcher and independent consultant specialized on new media. He currently works with the RATP, the Parisian Transport Operator, on the future of the subway. He will be speaking on love in the 21st century, more specifically about “metromantics”: internet messages about romantic encounters in Paris’ metro.

Why LIFT
It’ll be Frank’s first LIFT conference. Having only heard and read about the conference until now he still gave us a wonderful, detailed answer of what he believes LIFT stands for. He feels that a space, where people from all over the world get together to open-mindedly reflect and discuss technology and society is much needed. In the face of the challenges of our time: what can technology, the technologos, do for us and what does it do to us?

Listen in: “We’ve got googleface-tube-iphone-engine-maps-earth-streetviewer-socialgraphs-gps and an enormous amount of real time data about cities-friends-neighboors-theothersideoftheworld in our fingers, on the same screen. And so? And then? Why are so much people feeling so lonely in our cities, what can the Internet do for the housing crisis, or worse … for feeding people? Is it crazy to wait for technology to solve that, and to think that it’s only a question of time with the Internet as the next miracle of the happy global village? The Internet is only a camera. And its power lies more in what this new camera-micro-and-macroscope can bring to light about our non-changing way of life and beings than about the power of radical modernity. So, by discovering the naked world through the eyes of technology, what could we do?”

What Frank expects
Frank would like to share with fellow LIFTers, participate in a gathering that goes beyond technology, assist in the creation of a “campfire of exchanges”.

Fabio is an interaction design and user experience strategist from Italy. He’s happiest in areas at the intersection of design, technology and (social) connectivity, working on projects that wrap business scenarios around people’s desires and dreams. He’s definitely enthusiastic about mobile.

He’s currently creative director at frog design. Before that he worked in a variety of roles related to design and user experience: lecturing as associate professors at Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, managing the design process of soft- and hardware of mobile handsets for a major Italian telecom company as well as as user experience and interaction designer for different companies. He is also a visiting professor at the Politecnico di Milano, Domus Academy and at Scuola Politecnica di Design.

As a long time LIFTer and excellent speaker we are very much looking forward to welcoming Fabio as one of the three speakers for the “design thinking for the future” session on Friday morning. You can find more info about him on his LIFT profile.

Juliana Rotich is a blogger (Afromusing, Afrigadget), digital activist, citizen journalist and environment editor of Global Voices Online. With Global Voices, she helps to aggregate, curate and amplify online conversations, with particular focus on technology, the environment, renewable energy, and digital expression in Africa and the developing world.

Juliana is also the Program Director of Ushahidi.com, an innovative non-profit web startup that is creating a tool for mapping crises by gathering reports via mobile, e-mail and web. She is focused on using new media tools to create a network of environmental bloggers from around the world, elevating and encouraging more conversations and engagement on environmental matters.

Holding a BSc Degree in IT from the University of Missouri Kansas City she also has several years of experience in database administration, application development and project management. We are very much looking forward to hearing her speak on the solidarity theme on February 26th which she will bring alive together with Ramesh Srinivasan. Learn more about Juliana on her LIFT page.

Anjalika is an experience, graphic and furniture designer, ethnographer, artist and photographer. A participant in LIFT07, she will be back for LIFT09.

She is currently working as a designer at Philips Design (Healthcare), in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. During her studies she wrote papers on a variety of topics: using experience protoyping to gather feedback on interaction design, the history and trends of flexibility in in habitats and new approaches in learning environments for kids.

Anjalika graduated in 2007 from the Master programme in Interaction Design at the Umeå Institute of Design Umeå, Sweden. She also has a Bachelor’s degree in Interior Architecture from the Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, India.

To find out more about Anjalika feel free to visit her LIFT profile.