What can the future do for you?
Lift works to identify and anticipate current and emerging usagesof digital technologies through research, events, publications and services.
We are publishing the Lift France 11 talks from our new video site (mobile version here) developed in partnership with 23 video. We will publish new videos every week, and you can subscribe to automatic updates via our podcast service.
We're in a world where exponential change is the new normal. Old economic structures are being challenged by newer ones and networked technologies are changing the way we can distribute resources. For a world with so limited resources, it's amazing how much idle-capacity we have at the moment. This does not only apply to natural resources such as minerals and forests, but also applies to human resources, such as knowledge, skills, and tangible resources such as tools and equipment. In his presentation, Edial Dekker dives deeper in the role of social layers connected to the 'social object' of distributed resources and the effects that it has on the network. The talk will touch the concept of a trusted network, the rise of the micro-entrepreneur and why it challenges us to rethink the way corporations and organizations are structured.
Lift with Fing presents a new special offer for freelancers and start-ups, to make the conference more accessible, by involving your network: With the viral ticket system you can get your ticket at for 0 – 350 €.
This is how it goes:
Sign-up today and join the 300+ participants already registered. Looking forward to see you in Marseilles :)
How can we make Lac Leman into an Entrepreneurial Hub?
11 people signed up, 50 showed up!
What can we do, each of us? Local entrepreneurs unite!
Ideas
24x7 Entrepreneur café
Monthly Baby Lift Meet up
Angelsoft.net - free connection to 11'000 angel networks
500 family offices between Geneva & Lausanne : money!
Odd year Venture event in Swiss romand : come on McKinsey!
Non-tech venture fund
A web resource will appear to gather local entrepreneur club information: come back here.
Bruno Bonnell is a legendary french entrepreneur, founder of Infogrames and former CEO of Atari . Today Bruno has launched a new venture in the robotic market: Robopolis. In his speech at Lift Asia 08 "From Robota to Homo Robotus" (with remarkable energy and great performance the morning after a legendary Karaoke Night ;) Bruno revises Asimov's laws of robotic and highlights the differences between the Asian and Western approach to robotics.
About
Mitch Free is a serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO of MFG.com, an online marketplace which helps in sourcing manufactured parts by matching the requirements and specifications of the buyer with the skills and savoir-faire of a supplier. Prior to that, Mitch founded 3DATUM, a provider of technology solutions for the manufacturing and engineering communities. He began his career as a machinist on the shop floor, got his hands dirty and literally learned the manufacturing industry inside and out.
He's been widely recognized as an inspiring and ground-breaking entrepreneur who follows his instincts. He also is an avid speaker at technology conferences and at universities including the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University, Harvard and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. At LIFT09 Mitch will be a participant. We're looking forward to seeing him there.

Why we invited Rafi to LIFT
Rafi's career is very bright and original (coming form the Minitel entrepreneurship world), we were interested in his perspective about current development in technologies, especially about ubiquitous computing. He has indeed an original stance in the way he proposed to develop his company; somewhat like "we don't know what ubiquitous computing is so let's try something and see how people do out of it", leaving some space in his Nabaztag product to customization or hacking.
What will Rafi speak about
Rafi will talk about his latest start up venture, his approach towards entrepreneurship and what led to the creation of the Nabaztag. This cute little communicating animal is permanently connected to the Internet. It sends and receives a myriad of messages, indicates your mood to the outside world with its ears or lights in its belly, tells jokes, has performed in operas in France and the US (NY) and that is not all it can do. For more information check out Rafi's interview with Benjamin Gauthey on YouTube about Nabaztag or Rafi's LIFT Profile.