Only one week to go 'til it's too late to apply!

We are still on the look out for people to join our growing team of enthusiastic volunteers. This is your chance to exchange some of your interpersonal talents for an inspiring experience where access to a network of pioneering minds is made easy.

If you are interested and available from 5-7th May 2010, please apply by filling out the volunteer form. You need a Lift account to apply, register here (takes under a minute) or log in.

We are looking forward to receiving your application. You have until Friday 26th March, so apply today!

^{Volunteers on stage at Lift France 09.}

After Richard Hutten's cloud chair we featured at Lift09, we will again partner with Ormond Editions to bring the work of the world's best designers to our main stage. Our choice this year went to the AT-AT Walker, a Star Wars inspired lamp by Lifegoods.

Lift10 is in less than 2 months time, and we are posting profiles of the workshop organizers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

Maria Sipka, CEO and Founder of Linqia, will be hosting a Lift10 workshop entitled: The heart of the conversation: challenges brands face to edge their way into this sacred space.

Maria is interested in social media and on-line communities. She is driven by sparking conversations across many communities fostering meaningful, transparent and authentic exchanges. Before starting Linqia, Maria spent 2 years at XING initially as their COO responsible for the company’s international strategy and then as the Director of Community Development building and monetizing their groups and premium group offerings.

Maria's workshop will focus on the realities surrounding communities and groups online. Key themes such as how communities and groups have evolved, and the the opportunities and challenges facing brands and their agencies will be addressed. After examining some case studies on how brands are moving from campaigns to conversations in the social media space, participants will dive into an interactive workshop, where they will be tasked to develop their own community-based conversation for a given brand.

Do you want to be part of the conversation? Sign up here.

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:)

Lift10 is in less than 2 months time, and we are posting profiles of the confirmed speakers. Don't forget to have a look at the program!

Stephen Graham will be speaking at Lift10 in our opening session on the redefinition of privacy. We invited him to speak because of his investigations into how networked technologies redefine the notion of surveillance. His perspective as a geographer adds an important dimension to the discussion around the evolution of privacy.

Following a period at Durham Geography Department, Stephen is now Professor at the Global Urban Research Unit at Newcastle University's School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. He has a background in urbanism, planning and the sociology of technology. His research addresses intersections between urban places, mobilities, technology, war, militarization, surveillance and geopolitics. He writes and lectures in many countries and across a variety of disciplines.

Stephen has authored, co-authored and edited a range of books, including Telecommunications and the City (1996), Splintering Urbanism (2001) (both with Simon Marvin), The Cybercities Reader and Cities, War and Terrorism (both 2004). His most recent books, Disrupted Cities: When Infrastructures Fail (Routledge), and Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism (Verso), were published in December 2009 and January 2010 respectively.

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

Here come the latest news on Lift@Austria event to take place in Vienna on March 18-20 under the guidance of Thomas Fundneider and other local entrepreneurs.

The true trans-disciplinary conference on game-changing innovation is right around the corner. In one week, we will start a journey to collaboratively generate new knowledge on the challenge, how to orchestrate and configure parameters that enable profound innovations. A gathering of true innovators, academic grounders, practitioners and social entrepreneurs will inspire and spark new insights.

Speakers

All speakers will build their input on the topic of Enabling. Intensive preparations are under way in order to adjust the talks and the design of the workshops. When we speak about workshops, we mean it. Workshop facilitators, illustrators, prototype building blocks are all there. We want to see results at the end of the day!

Speakers include:

• Michel BAUWENS, An integrative approach to enabling open infrastructures, Peer to Peer Foundation, Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Florian BRODY, Enabling the Right Mindset, Cimbal Inc., CA, USA
• Silja GRAUPE, And the Ruler of the Central Sea was “Chaos” – Cherishing Chaos from Asian Perspectives, Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences, Germany
• Stefan CAMENZIND, Enabling Workplace Design - How would you love to work?, Camenzind Evolution, Architecture - Design - Technology, Switzerland
• Markus F. PESCHL, Enabling -- Introduction, University of Vienna, Austria
• Franz NAHRADA, Global Villages as Enabling Environments, Labor GIVE, Austria

Be sure to check the conference program.

Tokens

Inspired by alternative currency systems like Freigeld, we want to experiment on alternative rewarding- and motivation mechanisms by means of exchanging tokens between participants of Enable! At registration, you will receive tokens which have a real value in Euros. You can then award the most interesting input(s) by handing over all or parts of the tokens to the person(s) generating the input. Finally, these tokens can be converted back into real Euros at the end of the convention. A little game, which may cause that collaboration efforts will be rewarded visible and maybe you are the one, who can change reputative capital into some real Euros at the end (and buy a coffee or make holiday).

Practical information

Date: March 18-20, 2010
Location: Trinkomathallen, Vienna
Click here for registrations.