Edition > lift09

Click on a talk title below to see the video.




  • The Future of Social Media


    Chang Kim, the CEO of TNC (Korea's leading provider of professional blog solutions) discusses the evolution of the social web by addressing four issues: the homepage evolution, the need for data portability, the difference between online/offline relationships and how content authoring is not an homogeneous skill.

  • Metromantics


    Frank Beau, an independent researcher specialized in new media, talks about the "Metromantics" project. He basially describes the findings of a study of internet messages about romantic encounters in Paris' metro and show the sociological implications of such behaviors.


  • The role of design in sustainable development (FR)


    The role of design in sustainable development Oriol Pascual from Enviu Innovation Lab in Rotterdam describes several projects and initiatives that show the role of design in the creation of innovative solutions for environmental or social issues. In particular he focuses on his studio's work with regards to new sources of electricity production such as the generation of electricity through a dance floor.

  • Design Thinking (FR)


    Fabio Sergio, Design and User experience strategist and creative director at frog design, focuses his presentation on Design Thinking and its role in creating habitable and desirable futures. He shows various examples to explain how people-centred design goes beyond usage or consumption and should be about culture and seeing people how people react to things within their own culture.


  • Is there such a thing as Government 2.0?


    Olivier Glassey examines to what extent the notion of a "Government 2.0" is valid or only a buzzword. He uncovers thepotential transformations hiding behind it and question whether "2.0" really applies to government.

  • Lift09 introduction


    Laurent Haug, founder of the Lift Conference, opens the Lift09 conference and introduces the events' program.


  • Learning to play with Tomorrow (FR)


    Anab Jain, who is an independent designer and film maker from India, talks about "design futurescaping", which is using design methods like storytelling, experience prototyping, making scenarios tangible, and talking to people on a daily basis, to inspire and influence prototypes for the near future.

  • The Twentieth Century was wrong


    Lee Bryant describes to what extent we reach a new culture ecosystem echoes with old traditions of trade, business and socialisation while the Twentieth century was all about mass market and mass production.


  • Sarah Marquis' adventures (FR)


    Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis gives an impromptu account of her experience when walking through continents such as Australia or South America. She takes the Lift audience on a trip to explain her whole experience "away from home" and how she achieved it technically speaking in terms of food consumption or navigation.

  • Globalism, Mobiles, and The Cloud (FR)


    Juliana Rotich, an author, blogger and digital activist with Global Voices Online in Kenya, talks about citizen journalism in African countries. Starting from web examples, she then describes the value of mobile applications in this domain. Her presentation gives a broad overview of the issues at stake in mobile activism/journalism.


  • Scientific fiction (FR)


    The relationship between science-fiction and design is rich and pretty straight-forward, as explained by UK designer Matt Webb. Starting from examples of believable "scientific fiction", he describes how he implements this sort of thinking into a design process to create original prototypes.

  • The Sensable City


    Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, shows various projects he and his lab conducted around the theme of sensed data (mobile phone, flickr pictures) and how they allow to reveal new information layer on top of urban space and or lead to new experience for citizens.


  • Innovation VS product lifecycle (FR)


    All The Content CEO Clément Charles questions the importance of product lifecycle in the context of innovation: Does product lifecycle kill innovation or it's a necessary process to fund research? What is the impact of open innovation on those lifecycle?

  • Who has no knife may not eat pineapples


    Who has no knife may not eat pineapples, an off-topic tour d'horizon on the literacy of cutting Felix Koch and Fabian Kalker share their insights about "cutting cultures" and how observing the usage of knives reveal interesting social trend of our society. They tackle for instance the aversion to risk or the loss of a certain food culture.


  • Creative communities


    Soh Yeong Roh, director from Art Center Nabi in Seoul, gives her perspective the importance of spirituality and art as a way to question the values of our technophile culture. Based on her experience and a strong south-asian flavor, she shows how art can create "creative communities" that can work as engine for social development (socio-cultural-economic) for our knowledge based society.

  • The Future of Fake


    Fake products are certainly an important trend from the last twenty years. Trendbüro analyst Jörg Jelden describes why fakes are so successful and more importantly what they do differently as well what brands can learn from the fake industry.


  • Creative communities (FR)


    Soh Yeong Roh, director from Art Center Nabi in Seoul, gives her perspective the importance of spirituality and art as a way to question the values of our technophile culture. Based on her experience and a strong south-asian flavor, she shows how art can create "creative communities" that can work as engine for social development (socio-cultural-economic) for our knowledge based society.

  • Lift09 introduction (FR)


    Laurent Haug, fondateur des conférences Lift présente le programme de ce premier jour de l'édition 2009 de Lift à Genève.


  • Learning to play with Tomorrow


    Anab Jain, who is an independent designer and film maker from India, talks about "design futurescaping", which is using design methods like storytelling, experience prototyping, making scenarios tangible, and talking to people on a daily basis, to inspire and influence prototypes for the near future.

  • Is there such a thing as Government 2.0? (FR)


    Is there such a thing as Government 2.0? Olivier Glassey examines to what extent the notion of a "Government 2.0" is valid or only a buzzword. He uncovers thepotential transformations hiding behind it and question whether "2.0" really applies to government.


  • RFID and Security (FR)


    Melanie Rieback, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, gives an overview of the security and privacy issues concerning Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags. As a a "white hat hacker", she showed how she was able to break RFID systems in order to show to other people how to fix them.

  • Urban Mobs: How to visualize the cell phone activity in cities?


    How to visualize the cell phone activity in cities? Stéphane Distinguin, CEO of Faber Novel, describes the results from "Urban Mobs". This project, conducted with Orange aimed at studying crowd communication activities and paint a “ popular emotion cartography through mobile phone tracking.


  • Design Thinking


    Fabio Sergio, Design and User experience strategist and creative director at frog design, focuses his presentation on Design Thinking and its role in creating habitable and desirable futures. He shows various examples to explain how people-centred design goes beyond usage or consumption and should be about culture and seeing people how people react to things within their own culture.

  • Sociogeek (FR)


    Sociogeek: How do you expose yourself online? How do you choose your online friends? Another kind of online survey Daniel Kaplan, CEO of French think tank FING, discuss the results of an on-line survey which aimed at investigating the way people expose themselves online. Are we being too candid about ourselves when online? Are we as transparent as we pretend to be? What strategies do we follow in order to maximize the range and efficiency of our online social networks? And how do we select new online "friends"? Does online networking lower current social barriers?


  • Considering how digital culture enables a multiplicity of knowledges (FR)


    What would a diverse, complex world brain look like? Considering how digital culture and enable a multiplicity of knowledges. Ramesh Srinivasan, an Assistant Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, speaks about the importance of cultural differences in knowledge production and technology design. Through various stories, he shows the differences in cultural appropriation and the inherent creativity of people in adpating technologies to the uses that benefit them best.

  • Globalism, Mobiles, & The Cloud


    Juliana Rotich, an author, blogger and digital activist with Global Voices Online in Kenya, talks about citizen journalism in African countries. Starting from web examples, she then describes the value of mobile applications in this domain. Her presentation gives a broad overview of the issues at stake in mobile activism/journalism.


  • Soft Infrastructure Superpowers (FR)


    Dan Hill, from urban engineering firm Arup, revisits the past vision of the city of the future and shows they turned out differently. He discusses the important interplay between urban soft infrastructure (people, networks, culture, society, civic relationships) and hard infrastructure. Which leads him to the role of design thinking in developing this new layer information/services based on personal informatics.

  • Lifestyle Experiments (FR)


    Lifestyle Experiments and the Crisis of Agency Working at the crossroads of contemporary art, science, and engineering, Natalie Jeremijenko shows various projects of hers related with environmental issues. Each of them exemplifies a peculiar aspect of her approach that aims at addressing the transformative potential of new technologies in unexpected ways.


  • Update on Wikimedia Foundation


    Florence Devouard, who was the Chair of the Wikimedia Board till July 2008, gives a quick update of the situation at Wikipedia. She shows the recent evolution and initiative of the collaborative on-line encyclopedia.

  • Update on Wikimedia Foundation (FR)


    Florence Devouard, who was the Chair of the Wikimedia Board till July 2008, gives a quick update of the situation at Wikipedia. She shows the recent evolution and initiative of the collaborative on-line encyclopedia.


  • The Mozilla Project (FR)


    The Mozilla Project: Core Values of a 230 Million Person World Wide Social Network Chris Hofmann, from Mozilla how to combine the open-source values, strong communities, passion and an open approach for building a software such as Firefox.

  • From the Jurassic Era


    From the Jurassic Era of the Internet to its Futures. IP protocol inventor Vinton Cerf, who is now Vice President and Internet Evangelist at Google gave the concluding talk at Lift 09. After a quick recap of the history of the Internet, he basically gives an enthusiastic tour of its current limits (bitrot, IP address shortage) as well projects about its evolution, such as interplanetary internet though satellites.


  • Memoires of a magnificent future


    As the director of the Swiss museum of science-fiction, Patrick Gyger has access to a large variety of documentation concerning the past representation of the future. In his Lift09 talk, he revisits these visions and describes the reasons why they fail to materialize

  • Another kind of online survey


    Daniel Kaplan, CEO of French think tank FING, discuss the results of an on-line survey which aimed at investigating the way people expose themselves online. Are we being too candid about ourselves when online? Are we as transparent as we pretend to be? What strategies do we follow in order to maximize the range and efficiency of our online social networks? And how do we select new online "friends"? Does online networking lower current social barriers?


  • The Sensable City (FR)


    Carlo Ratti, director of the Senseable City Lab at MIT, shows various projects he and his lab conducted around the theme of sensed data (mobile phone, flickr pictures) and how they allow to reveal new information layer on top of urban space and or lead to new experience for citizens.

  • From the Jurassic Era of the Internet to its Futures (FR)


    From the Jurassic Era of the Internet to its Futures IP protocol inventor Vinton Cerf, who is now Vice President and Internet Evangelist at Google gave the concluding talk at Lift 09. After a quick recap of the history of the Internet, he basically gives an enthusiastic tour of its current limits (bitrot, IP address shortage) as well projects about its evolution, such as interplanetary internet though satellites.


  • The role of design in sustainable development


    Oriol Pascual from Enviu Innovation Lab in Rotterdam describes several projects and initiatives that show the role of design in the creation of innovative solutions for environmental or social issues. In particular he focuses on his studio's work with regards to new sources of electricity production such as the generation of electricity through a dance floor.

  • The Recurring Failure of Holy Grails


    Lift conference editorial director Nicolas Nova revisits technological failures from the past ranging from the videophone to the intelligent fridge. He then describes the reasons behind them and shows that failures can be turned into successes as shown by the videophone, which has now resurfaced on platforms such as Skype.


  • Reinventing the personal computer (FR)


    Frederic Kaplan, a researcher and robot designer from the Swiss Institute of Technology (Lausanne) talks about the need to invent new kind of computer interfaces adapted to more causal situations,without mouse and keyboard that one can use while continuing doing other thinks.

  • Innovation VS product lifecycle


    All The Content CEO Clément Charles questions the importance of product lifecycle in the context of innovation: Does product lifecycle kill innovation or it's a necessary process to fund research? What is the impact of open innovation on those lifecycle?


  • The Mozilla Project


    The Mozilla Project: Core Values of a 230 Million Person World Wide Social Network Chris Hofmann, from Mozilla how to combine the open-source values, strong communities, passion and an open approach for building a software such as Firefox.

  • Enchanted Objects (FR)


    Enchanted Objects - how fiction foreshadows innovation David Rose, who is a serial entrepreneur and a lecturer at MIT, shows how human beings have persistent needs and wishes that they carry through time. For each of these needs, he presents various prototypes and products to demonstrate how design can lead to "enchanted objects" by fulfilling them.


  • Design Provocations (FR)


    Clive van Heerden, creative director of Philips ‘Design Probes‘ program, explains their research methods based on design provocations. Through different examples such as skin tatoos, new textiles forms he shows how these "probes" are employed to understand people’s reactions and therefore better understand the future lifestyle in 2020/30.

  • Considering how digital culture enables a multiplicity of knowledges


    What would a diverse, complex world brain look like? Considering how digital culture enables a multiplicity of knowledges. Ramesh Srinivasan, an Assistant Professor at the University of California Los Angeles, speaks about the importance of cultural differences in knowledge production and technology design. Through various stories, he shows the differences in cultural appropriation and the inherent creativity of people in adpating technologies to the uses that benefit them best.


  • Urban Mobs (FR)


    Urban Mobs : how to visualize the cell phone activity in cities ? Stéphane Distinguin, CEO of Faber Novel, describes the results from "Urban Mobs". This project, conducted with Orange aimed at studying crowd communication activities and paint a “ popular emotion cartography through mobile phone tracking.

  • The Future of Fake (FR)


    Fake products are certainly an important trend from the last twenty years. Trendbüro analyst Jörg Jelden describes why fakes are so successful and more importantly what they do differently as well what brands can learn from the fake industry.


  • Enchanted Objects - How fiction foreshadows innovation


    David Rose, who is a serial entrepreneur and a lecturer at MIT, shows how human beings have persistent needs and wishes that they carry through time. For each of these needs, he presents various prototypes and products to demonstrate how design can lead to "enchanted objects" by fulfilling them.

  • Lifestyle Experiments


    Lifestyle Experiments and the Crisis of Agency Working at the crossroads of contemporary art, science, and engineering, Natalie Jeremijenko shows various projects of hers related with environmental issues. Each of them exemplifies a peculiar aspect of her approach that aims at addressing the transformative potential of new technologies in unexpected ways.


  • Cameroon : Lies, mariage and the Internet (FR)


    Yaoundé-based sociologist Baba Wamé gives a stunning overview of how the Web has been appropriated by cameroonian women. More specifically, he shows how email and IM have been turned into on-line dating tools. He then raise raise awareness on the dangers of such practices for the women of his country.

  • The Twentieth Century was wrong (FR)


    Lee Bryant describes to what extent we reach a new culture ecosystem echoes with old traditions of trade, business and socialisation while the Twentieth century was all about mass market and mass production.


  • What role can designers play


    What role can designers play in shaping our technological future? James Auger, from the Auger-Loizeau design studio, presents various examples and cases of critical and speculative design removed from the commercial standpoint. His projects in robotics, implants and mobile services, should be seen as provocative and discussion-generating pieces.

  • Memoires of a magnificent future (FR)


    Memoires of a magnificent future: Flying cars and the shape of things to come. As the director of the Swiss museum of science-fiction, Patrick Gyger has access to a large variety of documentation concerning the past representation of the future. In his Lift09 talk, he revisits these visions and describes the reasons why they fail to materialize.


  • What role can designers play? (FR)


    What role can designers play in shaping our technological future? James Auger, from the Auger-Loizeau design studio, presents various examples and cases of critical and speculative design removed from the commercial standpoint. His projects in robotics, implants and mobile services, should be seen as provocative and discussion-generating pieces.

  • Soft Infrastructure Superpowers


    Dan Hill, from urban engineering firm Arup, revisits the past vision of the city of the future and shows they turned out differently. He discusses the important interplay between urban soft infrastructure (people, networks, culture, society, civic relationships) and hard infrastructure. Which leads him to the role of design thinking in developing this new layer information/services based on personal informatics.


  • Scientific fiction


    The relationship between science-fiction and design is rich and pretty straight-forward, as explained by UK designer Matt Webb. Starting from examples of believable "scientific fiction", he describes how he implements this sort of thinking into a design process to create original prototypes.

  • How the Web was Born (FR)


    How the Web awas Born: Stories from a scribe Web veteran and CERN PR James Gillies tells us his perspective on the history of the Web. He shows the backstage vision from an insider's perspective of what used to be a "vague but exciting" idea that became the World Wide Web around the early 90s.


  • Who has no knife may not eat pineapples (FR)


    Who has no knife may not eat pineapples, an off-topic tour d'horizon on the literacy of cutting Felix Koch and Fabian Kalker share their insights about "cutting cultures" and how observing the usage of knives reveal interesting social trend of our society. They tackle for instance the aversion to risk or the loss of a certain food culture.
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