Let’s meet

I will be attending the following events in the next two months:

Lift10, 5-7 May, Geneva

Of course This promises to be our most ambitious event ever. I said after Lift09 that the next Lift would be different, it was time for a change. And we did just that: we have completely revamped the pace of the conference (workshops every morning, more interactivity, improved open stage and social events), created a startup corner, partnered with the Geneva school of Art and Design to create a scenography and an improved Lift experience. The response has been amazing: new partners like Google, Frog Design, Canal+, Ricard , IMD or Red Bull joined us, and the roster of participants is simply incredible. Entrepreneurs, designers, CEOs, artists, investors, researchers, students, journalists, bloggers, some of the world’s best minds will gather in Geneva in four weeks. A little less than 300 tickets remain as I write this.

Switch conference, 15-16 May, Coimbra

A new conference starting in Portugal. I will speak on entrepreneurship alongside the likes of Charles Spence, Michel Bauwens or Stephanie Booth. I look forward to spending a bit of time in a country I have a soft spot for, and maybe see the old Portuguese gang.

PINC, 18 May, Zeist (Holland)

Founded 11 years by Peter van Lindonk, PINC is constantly cited among the top conferences in Europe. I will gladly attend for the first time, and look forward to hear a co-founder of Kiva, a winner Ig Nobel Prize, a Micronaut, a Neuro-Psychologist and more intriguing (in the Nicolas Nova sense of the word) speaker. 

Frontiers of Interaction, 3-4 June, Rome

I will be animating the balcony interviews where my job will be to keep the audience entertain between talks by making interesting people talk. Should not be too hard: the team has assembled a great line up of speakers, and a conference that happens at a city like Rome has already done half the job right. This will also be an occasion to catch up with Lift07 speaker Sister Judith Zoebelein, who moved on from being the webmaster of the Vatican to new duties.

Transatlantic Network 2020 Summit, 20-25 June, Chicago

I will try to offset the carbon footprint of all those trips by a positive contribution to the Transatlantic Network, an ambitious British Council initiative that aims to “build innovative collaborations between young North Americans and Europeans to address challenges that will define their generation”. The event “will have the overarching theme of Using Technology to Create Social Change and feature programmatic elements that fall under the three TN2020 focus areas of sustainable living, building community resilience and creativity and innovation”.

Lift France 10, with Fing, 5-7 July, Marseille

“Webify the real world!” After gathering 560 people in 2009 around the likes of serial entrepreneur Gunter Pauli, philosopher Dominique Pestre, writer Bruce Sterling and minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Lift France is back in Marseille in the heat of summer: July 5-7, again in the beautiful setting of Le Palais du Pharo. This year Lift France with Fing will explore how the technologies and concepts of the web are changing the real world today and in the future. For the last 20 years, networked technologies have redistributed the power of imagining, evaluating, and acting. No frontier has remained fixed. No longer the world’s factory, Asia has become a major source of innovation. Consumers have also become producers. The divisions between industries or disciplines are being redefined. This change extends far beyond the digital. It transforms manufacturing, learning, cities, public policy, perhaps even our own minds… The Web changes the world – But to what extent? With what limitations? How can it reach its full potential?