European conferences update

News on several upcoming European conferences.

Picnic07, Amsterdam, 25-29 September -- Registrations -- Second Picnic -- which is basically a weeklong idea festival (posts from Picnic06) -- and producer Monique van Dusseldorp has put together a great program, including  many special events such as a "day of the media labs" and a special cinegrid presentation, and a new annex, a 500'000 euro award for the best eco-friendly product or service (see this previous post). Speakers will include "Everything is miscellaneous" author David Weinberger, designer Stefan Sagmeister, and David Silverman, the director of "The Simpsons".

Virtual Worlds Forum, London, 23-26 October -- Registrations -- Takes place for the first time, but it will be first rate (it's produced by my friend Sasha Frieze, who used to run events for the Industry Standard magazine back when it was still the bible of the new economy). Fifty or so speakers, covering all aspects of virtual worlds, including Ian Hughes (metaverse evangelist for IBM), Adam Pasick (Reuters), VCs, academics, and of course every player from Second Life to Lego. Updates are posted on the conference's blog.  

ComDays, Bienne, 25-26 October -- Registrations -- A Swiss conference on communications that's taking an international dimension. Speakers will include EU Commissioner Viviane Reding; NYT tech columnist David Pogue.

Future of Europe Summit, Andorra, November 29-30 --  Registrations -- This second FES (read posts from FES 2006) will go under the theme "Addressing Europe's brainpower challenge" (we're talking about the global competition around knowledge, skills and innovation). The first speakers names will be announced soon. Last year, over 200 participants from all over Europe attended, and here is the conference's report (PDF 2.2 Mb) if you're interested.

LeWeb3, Paris, 11-12 December -- Registrations will open soon -- Loic Le Meur is busy putting together his third tech fest. Bigger venue downtown Paris, over 1500 people expected to attend, and an open organization process: names of potential speakers and topics are up on the conferences' blog and on its Facebook group, and anyone can give inputs.

LIFT08, Geneva, 6-8 February 2008 -- Registrations will open soon -- The program for the third LIFT conference in Geneva (read posts from the February 2007 gathering) will also be released soon. Here are videos from the past two LIFTs. In the meantime, Laurent Haug and his team have announced that in 2008 there will be a first LIFT Asia, in South Korea, probably in May or June. A small pre-event, to start warming things up, will take place on 12th September.