As you might have noticed we started to publish the speakers profiles, a tradition we started at Lift07 with the idea of allowing participants to preview the speakers they want to focus on during the conference.

This year the profiles will be published by Benedikt Foit and we added a little something new: participants profiles! We have amazing people coming to the conference, giving workshops, speaking at the open stage, or simply attending, and we decided to profile some of them. Lift veteran Tom Hume, who attended every edition since lift06, has the honor to go first, with more profiles coming at the pace of one every four to five days.

I would like to pass a very important information today: we are closing program suggestions. Here is why.

We created program suggestions in 2006 because of a simple fact: most of those attending the conference also deserved be speakers. Over the years we have been very happy to hear all suggestions from the community, and even created the open program to give you more access to presenting (currently open program is 36 slots of more than 50 hours while official program is 20 slots and around 10 hours).

As Lift grows, gets covered by the BBC, BusinessWeek, and hundreds of blogs, we are getting EVERY DAY a number of suggestions equivalent to the number of speakers slots FOR ONE EDITION.

This results in a very frustrating situation: we have to turn down 99% of the propositions simply because we have no room! And very good people, with very good propositions, who took one hour of their time to create a nice pitch, these people end up feeling left out (and it's not funny nor easy for us either).

Open Program stays unchanged, based only on suggestions!

To end this situation we decided to stop accepting propositions for the official program. The open program will be where the community can speak, you make your propositions (workshops, open stage, discussions coming soon), you vote, and this should be a much more effective system.

Last year 100% of workshops propositions were accepted (and we even added 4 slots this year!), these numbers going down slightly to 60% for open stage and discussions. That is a better mechanism: those who take time to propose somethings end up being rewarded for their effort more often.

We have a Facebook group, we have a Flick, a Google account for our videos, and now our collection will grow with the beautiful Dopplr (created by Lift's friend and past speaker Matt Jones) where we now have a group thanks to another former speaker, Greensboro-based futurist Scott Smith!

Join us on Dopplr!

After yesterday's newsletter, the last super early bird tickets are selling very quickly. As I speak there are 3 remaining (out of 50) so if you want to attend Lift for only 650chf (that's a bit less than 550$) go to amiando.com/lift09 now!

If you have an account on our website you will receive the first issue of our newsletter! After not really using email to keep in touch with our growing community, we decided to send a couple of updates every year, mostly to announce each event and keep you guys informed of the changes that we make to the format of the conference.

We hope you like this new way of passing information to you, and you can subscribe or unsubscribe on your account page, by clicking on the "My newsletters" tab.

Last but not least, our Google Group is now closed after a few years of great service!

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If you are visiting this page it means you are very very probably participating in the event, so first thank you for coming! Every year we welcome close to 700 persons coming from 35 countries, and the following information is here to make your trip and stay as enjoyable as possible.

Participant checklist

• • Book a flight and hotel. Try to arrive on the 24th and to leave on the 28th. See below for addresses.
• • Follow the conference news: join the mailing list, read the official blog, subscribe to our RSS feeds. More info.
• • Print the maps and directions document before you travel (coming soon)
• • Complete your profile so that others can know who you are and what you are up to. You will end up with better contacts, that's the main reason for coming to conferences right?
• • See if you can propose a workshop, a talk or a discussion
• • Join somebody else's workshop

Quick facts

• The conference happens in Geneva, Switzerland, on Feb 25-26-27, 2008
• If you are coming from abroad, you should land on the 24th or 25th (if you want to attend the morning workshops come on the 24th, but landing early on geneva on the 25th also works) and fly back on the February 28th if you are in a hurry, on March 1st if you can take a bit of time to visit the region.
• The whole conference is held in English.
• The weather in February is pretty cold
• The currency is the Swiss Franc (CHF). 1CHF is 0.85USD, 0.67EUR, 0.55GBP

Nicolas Nova posted the conference program, and you can now see the first sessions and speakers. As Nicolas puts it in a short intro:

The Lift09 program is build around one central idea: that our future is built less around material and tangible creations - such as flying cars or Asimov-inspired robots - than it used to be in the 20th century. We will start by asking what happened to the future, then consider what and how important changes have happened in the past decades. The next sessions will then address less techno-centric changes, showing how solidarity, love, and the way we inhabit space have evolved in recent times. The conference will end with a focus on the new frontiers as well as the designers' role to build new representations of the future.

As usual half of the program is in your hands via the workshops and open stage, so enjoy your possibilities and make your propositions. We noticed that early propositions have much more chance to be accepted than late ones (because they stay up for vote longer) so warm up your slides!

^{A picture from an early version of the program, and a glimpse of the Lift10 format ;)}

See the Lift09 program.

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From the time of its creation in 1559 by Jean Calvin, right up to the recent discovery by University astrophysicists of extrasolar planets, the University of Geneva has continued to grow and develop while maintaining its longstanding tradition of excellence with an international angle.

The University of Geneva is the second largest university in Switzerland and is a public institution of the Republic and Canton of Geneva. It pursues three missions: Teaching (classes are, in general, taught in French), research, and service to the wider community.