In ten days I will be in Marseille for the first ever Lift France, an event we decided to co-organize with the Fing less than five months ago. It was quite a risky bet in these troubled times, but it is paying off: we have our most coherent and well built program ever, discussing a fundamental shift in society: how our relationship to objects is going to change in the near future, both because they will join our computer networks and because we will be able to influence them like never before. Sensors networks, open source objects, fab labs, home production, many many big changes ahead.

^{John Thackara, Edith Ackermann, Bruce Sterling, Dennis Pamlin, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet , Euan Semple, Philippe Lemoine and many more speakers.}

Marseille is a city buzzing with ideas and creativity, and we will showcase more than 20 projects selected by Axelle Benaich, Eleonore de Lusignan and Laurent Bolli for their originality, and the fact they will make you think out of the box. Twenty is double the amount of projects we usually show, they were so many good propositions that we decided to integrate more than usual.

^{Eggregor 8 by Antonin Fourneau, what happens when 8 people play the same character in a game?}

^{Magic’Sense by Olivier Eschapasse, Cyrille MICHAUT and Patrick Zucchetta, when the bar helps you connect with others.}

^{Open-Source Washing Machine by France Cadet, Hélène Berger and Morgane Rebuffat, how recycled materials can be turned into a cheap and effective wash machine.}

^{The Green Watch: City Pulse by Thierry Marcou, what happens if we all had a watch reporting on air quality?}

Then there is the open program where we had to close submissions two weeks earlier than we usually do after being overflown with quality propositions. There will be workshops about marketing, art, hacking, fund raising, innovation in Africa, education, many topics proposed and moderated by the participants themselves.

Finally, we will be at an exceptional location at the Palais du Pharo, and carefully prepared social events will make sure everybody has a good and productive time, a must to reach our goal of creating new contacts and ideas for the 500 expected participant, among them ten of the most influential bloggers who were invited through a partnership with the OIF.

^{Our venue: the Palais du Pharo.}

First conferences are always special, unique adventures where a new community is born, where a special energy shows up like last year at Lift Asia. Ten days to go, it will be hard to wait…

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 10:21 pm and is filed under lift. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.