Conference season starts: Geneva Writers’ Conference, Lift10

Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva’s winter and spring schedule of conferences which are open to the public is getting underway, and it includes two favourites with the international population: the February Geneva Writers Workshop and Lift10, which moves from its previous February dates to May this year.

The Geneva Writers’ Conference, 5-7 February 2010 at Webster University, had only 20 places left, out of 200, by 5 January.

Fiction writers and editors who have been invited to present are: Martina Evans, Thomas E Kennedy, Geeta Kothari, Richard Scrimger. The conference is hosted every two years by the Geneva Writers’ Group, a diverse group of over 200 local writers. The conference pulls in outside experts and published writers to provide a weekend of workshops, panel discussions, critiquing, question and answer sessions and readings.

Lift10, 5-7 May at the ICC (International Conference Centre) in Geneva will pull in 1,000 participants from 140 countries to reflect on “Connected People”, the myriad ways in which people connect, which remains at the heart of innovation. The conference has grown in just five years from a technology-oriented meeting to a conference with an international reputation for lively debates that look ahead and consider where society is going, always in relationship to innovation and technology. It is unusual in that it brings together people from business, government, NGOs, and academia.

Key speakers at Lift10 to date include:

* Rahaf Harfoush: works with organizations to build authentic relationships by aligning their social media initiatives with their vision. She was involved in the extraordinary effort that helped bring President Barack Obama to the White House in 2008;
* Amelia Andersdotter: elected to the European Parliament as a representative of the “Pirate Party” that rocked Swedish elections in 2009, and made it to centre stage using new tactics;
* Jamais Cascio: named one of the top 100 global thinkers by Foreign Policy “for being our moral guide to the future”.

Links to other sites: Geneva Writers’ Conference, Lift10