LIFT08: Program's out

The conference LIFT08 will take place for the third time in Geneva, Switzerland, on 6-8 February 2008. The main structure of the program has been presented tonight in a trendy bar downtown Geneva by organizer Laurent Haug and editorial producer Nicolas Nova.

And again, like last year, they seem to have got a knack of seeking out many new voices and speakers that haven't made the rounds yet -- but have interesting things to say. The program is structured in thematic "tracks", four per day on Thursday 7 and Friday 8. On Wednesday, a pre-conference will present a series of focused workshops. Thursday evening will feature the now-traditional fondue for 500+ people. Alongside the main conference there will be a "blogcamp"-like space for unplanned discussions and presentations, as well as an "off" space dedicated to design, art and games.

Here a quick rundown of the main tracks:

• Internet in society -- With Jyri Engestrom (he just sold microblogging platform Jaiku to Google), Jonathan Cabiria (on virtual environments and social inclusions) and others
• User experience -- With two tech anthropologists, Younghee Jung (Nokia, Tokyo) and Geneviève Bell (Intel, Seattle) and UC's Paul Dourish.
• Stories -- With serial entrepreneur Rafi Haladjian and others.
• A glimpse of Asia -- With Marc Laperrouza, a specialist of new tech in China, Heewon Kim, a Korean researcher on teens and social networks, and others.
• New Frontiers -- With "cyborg" Kevin Warwick, Henri Markram who's trying to simulate the functioning of brain cells, and Holm Friebe talking about new forms of cooperation and collaborative work.
• Gaming -- With Robin Hunicke (who worked on games for the Nintendo Wii) on gaming trends, and others.
• Web and entreprises -- With David Sadigh and David Marcus on how the web is reshuffling work practices.
• Foresight -- With future researchers Scott Smith (Changeist) and William Cockayne (Stanford) and Nokia designer Francesco Cara.

Haug also announced that LIFT is exporting itself to Asia: after a successful small launch event a few weeks ago in Seoul, South Korea, they're now planning a full LIFTAsia in September 2008, again in Seoul.

(For the previous LIFT conferences, here several LoIP posts from LIFT06 and some of the sessions that I liveblogged at LIFT07).