Do you remember Fontself? The project of Franz Hoffman and Marc Escher has gone a long way since its presentation at the Lift07 experience, under the supervision of Cristiana Bolli and an early implementation by Nicholas Wolff.

Check these guys out and give it a go on fontself.com.

Today we have opened the lines for this year’s Open Stage!

The Lift 10 Open Stage will feature seven of you who will take us on a short tour d'horizon of what their days look and feel like. You might walk us through your typical work week, bring your favourite tool and showcase your craftsmanship or tell us about that one secret ingredient in your life. All this can be work-related, but does not have to be: We are interested in what you are genuinely passionate about.

Please have a look at the full brief and send us your proposal using the Open Stage forms. Everyone who attends Lift 10 can hand in a proposal for a chance to hit the big stage in May and we are looking forward to receiving your ideas.

Submission deadline is April 5th – but the earlier we hear from you, the better your chances!

If you have got any questions or comments, please talk to us at openstage@liftconference.com.
Thanks for reading!

Important reminder: workshop submissions close on April 1st. That's in 15 days time, so make your proposition soon!

We already have some really nice workshops scheduled for Lift10. See the current propositions:)

Six months after its launch, our attempt to recycle the Tupperware idea in the world of conferences is going well. Twenty-five lift@home events have either happened or are scheduled. Here is a look at the upcoming events of the next three months:

Lift Austria

Enable! Profound Innovation in Society, Economy & Knowledge

18-20 Mar 2010, Vienna, organized by Thomas Fundneider
More of a real conference than a small, one time event, we call this Lift Austria and a couple of Swiss members of our community will be in the audience to brainstorm about the art of Enabling. Like the earlier Lift Workshop @ Brussels, Council and Tinker.it, some events gather more than a hundred participants and surpass our original intent of holding small, informal gatherings. Of course we love it, and thank the courageous organizers who work hard for their community!

Lift Presentations @ THINKDATA:

Social, semantic, manipulation, real-time, mobile data

18 Mar 2010, Lausanne, organized by Raphaël Briner
A dive into the technical and fundamental topic of data. The bonus of this event will be the possibility to visit the Rolex Learning Center (Switzerland's most exciting building of the moment) before the conference.

^{Visit the Rolex Learning Center ahead of the LIft @ Thinkdata conference.}

Lift Presentations @ imaginove

Alternate reality games, jeux mobiles et géolocalisés

28 Apr 2010, Lyon, organized by Emmanuel Rondeau
This event is part of a series of six events organized by the Imaginove cluster in Lyon. Don't get fooled by the low registrants number on the website, check the pictures of the first event instead. This is France, people show unregistered and the spontaneity of the ensemble adds up to the experience :D

Lift Presentations @ Seoul, South Korea

Digital Architecture and Large Scale Media Art - DALSMA

9 May, Seoul, organized by Andrea Bianchi
Lift goes back to Asia thanks to Andrea Bianchi who will be organizing his second event in the Korean capital. This time, several organizations are behind the project, and the event is expected to at least double in size.

Thanks to all those who organize and attend these events! If you have never heard of Lift@home, check the initiative's site and don't forget you can organize your own event if you attended a previous Lift conference!

The Alp ICT cluster and a group of organizations promoting Swiss entrepreneurship have teamed up with Lift to facilitate access to the 2010 edition of the conference for:

Startups based in Western Switzerland
Founded less than four years ago
With less than twenty employees

If you think your project fits the above description, you can apply for one of the fifteen packages that include:

Two tickets (one of them offered by Alp ICT and its partners) for the full Lift10 conference (value CHF 1700).

Dedicated space inside the Alp ICT startup corner where you can demo your product. For startups offering online solutions, your services could be presented on the Lift website if they add value to conference participants (value: CHF 3000).

Bonus: eight of the fifteen companies will be chosen to present during the Alp ICT venture night on the big stage alongside legendary investor Neil Rimer of Index Ventures.

Price for this package: CHF 1'250.- HT.

To apply, please download the application form and email it to info@alpict.ch.

Please note:
• If you would like to benefit from this package and already registered for Lift10, contact us and we will cancel your earlier ticket.
• This offer is made possible by organizations promoting entrepreneurship in Western Switzerland. If you are a young company from somewhere else in the world, get in touch to see how we could facilitate your participation to the conference.

Supported by

We proudly received the confirmation of the City of Geneva Administrative Council support for Lift10.

Nouvelles technologies: la Ville de Genève apporte son soutien à la Conférence LIFT

Le Conseil administratif a décidé d'apporter son soutien à la cinquième Conférence LIFT, qui se tiendra à Genève du 5 au 7 mai 2010. La Ville de Genève, cité innovante et tournée vers les nouvelles technologies, financera notamment vingt «bourses» qui seront accordées à dix étudiant-e-s en Suisse et dix étudiant-e-s à l'étranger, qui pourront ainsi prendre part à cette conférence.

Du 5 au 7 mai prochain, l'association LIFT organisera au Centre international de conférences Genève (CICG) sa cinquième conférence internationale, qui devrait accueillir un millier de participant-e-s provenant d'une quarantaine de pays. Les thèmes abordés seront les défis actuels et les solutions créatives en rapport avec les nouvelles technologies de l'information et de la communication.

Créée en 2006, LIFT existe désormais en Europe et en Asie. L'association a pour but de permettre aux acteurs et actrices d'un monde qui n'a jamais changé aussi vite de se saisir du potentiel transformateur des nouvelles technologies. Chaque conférence offre la possibilité de comprendre les effets de l'innovation sur la société, et de transformer le changement en opportunité.

Thanks to Pierre Maudet and his colleagues for recognizing and supporting our work to make our city and region more dynamic, creative and attractive!

We're getting closer to conference time, with exactly 2 months before doors open!

As we mentioned in an earlier blog post, Lift10 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. Quite a few of these options expire on the 31st of March, 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

On March 18, while our international community will gather in Vienna for the first Lift Austria, Swiss Lifters are invited to the amazing Rolex learning center for Lift Presentations @ ThinkData. The conference will explore data under all its form: social, semantic, real-time, mobile, geo, etc. Click on the image below to learn more and register for this free event!

See you at the EPFL learning center

Probably one of the most impressive building of the year. Learn more on the official website.

We love having students at Lift. This year we are even actively working on bringing high-school scholars to make our audience as diverse as possible. We know our tickets are too expensive if you are still at university (see our pricing policy for an explanation), so we organize various initiatives: a contest, the opportunity to be a volunteer, and individual partnerships with schools in Switzerland and now internationally.

These partnerships work in a very simple way: we offer a discount on the ticket, the school/university pays 80% of the remaining price and the student 20%. This is how 40 students from the ENSCI, University of Geneva and CERN (see full list) attend the conference. We are currently developing more of these partnerships, and we are asking our community to give us more contacts inside academic institutions. If you are studying and would like your school to help you attend Lift, please get in touch, introduce us to the right person and we will work on making the conference accessible to you.

Our partner Redbull will give you wings, but Air France will actually fly you to Geneva for Lift10 :)
Air France will be offering Lifters a CHF 50 reduction on any flight (to any of their destinations, not just Geneva) for a limited period. We look forward to this new partnership and having them on board...

Have a look here for more details, and the discount code. Please note that the code only works on the Air France Switzerland site, and that this is only in French and German. The site will be available in English in April.

To give you an idea of the current rates and savings, here are some example fares for the conference dates:
- From London (direct): CHF 210, discounted to CHF 160
- From New York (via Paris): CHF 890, discounted to CHF 840