Lift Asia 09 will start tonight with the speakers diner, then the talks will kick off tomorrow morning at 10am (3am Swiss time). The team is busy with last minute logistics, printing badges, preparing the rooms, making sure the setup goes smoothly. Nicolas, Benjamin Joffe and I are giving talks at Daum, one of the conference partner for whom we organized a private event for the staff that can not attend Lift can still get access to some of the ideas and inspirations.

^{I heard the weather is quite cold in Europe, so I wanted to share a picture of the setting where Lift Asia 09 happens. Sorry :D}

This is the third year we organize the conference in Korea after Lift Asia 07 and Lift Asia 08, but only the second Jeju event with 400+ attendees. Lift is getting more and more understood and recognized, something that is not obvious as it is radically different from traditional Asian conferences. There is a clear jump in the quality of people attending. Several high level CEOs will be in the room, in this country it is a key indicator on how much credibility you have.

The program has been rocked by the last minute addition of the guys who helped take Korea from an industrial country to an internet powerhouse. The co-founder of Cyworld, the CEO of Neowiz (the country’s third largest internet company), the founder of Daum (first or second largest internet company depending on how you look ;), these guys are rarely on stage, and having them together for a fireside chat will make this even more special. They join speakers from all over the world, and a few rock stars like our friend Ida Daussy, one of the country’s most famous TV personality who will open with a pep talk about Korean and Western culture, and how they mix up during a conference like Lift.

The conference ends on Friday evening, see you on Saturday when normallife will resume. Rock on!

Seoul is one of the world’s most wired city, and the recent “ubiquitous city” project aims to increase the level of connectivity citizens experience on the street. One of the most visible part of the u-city is the media poles forest, tenth of computers embedded into high poles offering services like news, submay and bus maps, email postcard, 3D avatar game, casual games, shopping/restaurant locator and Flickr photo gallery (more). This sort of rich country’s version of the hole in the wall is extremely popular, and many couples and groups gather around the screens to share a moment playing games or sending a postcard.

^{Four young girls pose at a “media pole” on Gangnam Avenue. Photo by Time}

I made a short video to show those computers who bring people together instead of isolating them.

The dog in/on a scooter

New building in Hongik

Platoon Kunsthalle

Menu in Korean

Compressed people

Seoul War Museum

More pictures here.

Yes, it’s a serious project, and Hojun Song will show it at Lift Asia 09.

After making the trip for the 15th time, I made a small video to show you what it’s like to fly to Seoul, and arrive in a completely different world.

It seems Korea is touched by a local form of BigCompanizite, with innovations being kept at bay by monopolies and walled gardens:

For starters, Korea is the only developed country in the world that has yet to see iPhones, the gold standard of modern smart phones. Local carriers, bent on protecting their walled garden are still hesitant to embrace the breakthrough phone […]

Samsung and LG may be selling some of the most advanced touchscreen phones in the global market, but amazingly when those high-end phones are released for the local folks, they are sans Wi-Fi for fear of getting on the nerves of local carriers. […]

The freedom of speech in the Korean Cyberspace is rapidly deteriorating as well, amid flurry of recent legislation that ranges from the real name log-on system that invited a sharp rebuke from YouTube Korea and the three-strike rule for online copyright infringements. […]

The recent developments in the Korean IT sector remind many industry observers of the spectacular failure of another nation in Asia — Japan.

Back in the late 1990’s and well into the early 2000’s, Japan was full of eye-popping handsets that were an envy of the global IT world and a torrent of sophisticated innovations were pouring out of the mobile Internet sector. But like the Galapagos Islands, Japan took its own unique evolutionary path in the technology, cut off from the rest of the world. It is now a well-established fact that Japan had to hurry later to catch up with the Web, ironically because of its sophisticated — but highly insular — innovations in the homegrown mobile internet.

Link (thanks Olivier)

I find this fascinating:

This is totally unrelated to whatever is usually written on this blog, but that particular video might save hours to several readers who, so far, had been stuggling immensely with the daunting task of folding tshirts.

Time to fly to Seoul now, this time with a camera and the strong intention to shoot more videos (and share some of the experiences I keep on living in Korea).

Don’t mess with Korean tourists :D I will keep that in mind next week when I’ll be in Seoul to prepare Lift Asia 09.

SOUTH KOREAN TOURISTS USE TAEKWANDO TO FLOOR ARMED ROBBER

(ANSA) - Rome, August 3 - A group of South Korean tourists honed their Taekwondo skills on an armed robber in Rome who ended up thanking police for rescuing him from a deathly beating, officials said on Monday.
“Thank you, I was being massacred,“ the 48-year-old unidentified Italian told Carabinieri police as they led him to Rome`s Regina Coeli prison.
The Koreans were touring the ancient Roman Theatre of Marcellus on Sunday afternoon when the man turned a knife on them and snatched a handbag. But before he could get away, one of the Koreans pounced on him, took his knife and floored him with some very deft strokes. Police said the man was decidedly very relieved to see them and “almost grateful“ to land in jail.

Link (thx Jaewoong)

Cross posted from the Lift blog, hoping to reach all the Swiss entrepreneurs who read my blog. The venture trip is a great initiative enabled by Alpict and allowing Swiss start-ups to reach the Korean market in ideal conditions. We do the legwork and open the right doors, the entrepreneur gets new clients and contacts.

Last year we organized a venture trip to Asia, helping Swiss start-ups (Poken, Arimaz, KeyLemon, Secu4, Lighthouse, Pixelux) develop and promote themselves on the Korean Market.

The venture trip resulted in more than half the start-ups developing strong ties with the country of the morning calm, some finding new clients, others new suppliers (especially if you work in electronics or robotics). All entrepreneurs gathered unique experience on how to do business in Asia, and met key actors of one of the world’s most interesting, homogeneous and innovative market on earth. Did you know Korea is beating exportation records right now, and that many think that the crisis is already over there?

So if you like the opportunity to meet potential clients, suppliers, partners, or investors, have us arrange the meetings and translators for you, and an opportunity to showcase your product and services at Lift Asia, submit your application. The deadline has been extended to accommodate the July vacationers :)

Look at the call for project and send us your application!