Robots and open source: speeches in Geneva and Lausanne

If you are in the Lake Geneva region, there are two upcoming small tech gatherings worth attending:

• Tomorrow, Tuesday 29 May in Geneva, starting at 6PM, a miniconference on robots, cyborgs and artificial intelligence. Organized by LIFT and Swiss Public Television TSR, it will take place in French at the TSR main building (see the conference's page for details on the venue). Featured speakers: Auke Jan Ijspeert, director of the Biologically-Inspired Robotics Group at the Swiss Institute of Technology; Frédéric Kaplan, AI researcher, author of a book in French on "Domesticated machines" ("Les machines apprivoisées", which I can't wait to read), formerly with the Sony Aibo team -- check out this "Aibo swimming in a pool with a wetsuit on" video -- and now working on interactive furniture and robotic objects; and Daniela Cerqui, an anthropologist with the University of Lausanne, who's associated with the work of "cyborg" Kevin Warwick. Attendance is free, but you have to register.

• On Monday 18 June in Lausanne, starting at 10 AM at the University of Lausanne (see the conference's page for details on the venue) Richard Stallman, who launched the free software movement when he started GNU Project in 1983, will talk about "Ethics and practice of free software". The event (Stallman will speak in French) will take place as part of the annual gathering of the Association for Information and Management. Attendance is free.