On wednesday 25 February, six of the 21 LIFT workshops will be be video capture and then put online on www.klewel.com/lift09 .
Room 16:
10:00 I remember voting for the first time at the age of 16 in 2025 by Jean-Henry Morin
We are after 2025, the society has been completely “servitized” (service economy) and most if not all interactions are now dematerialized. The e-Government existed when you were born and you grew up in an e-Democracy. You, as a concerned citizen, remember voting for the first time in 2025. You were then 16 years old.
During this workshop you will be asked, based on a short context description to choose among three types of society / government evolution models. A “free-enterprise” model, a “good big-brother” model and a “smooth continuity” model where things evolved in a rather linear way since the early 21st century. Should you have another idea for a model not mentioned above, bring it along and we’ll allocate a fourth “wild card” group by vote among the participants for the one gathering the most interest.
Groups will be asked to creatively think about what, why and how they voted at that time in order to propose a single most important high impact trend or idea as output of their discussions.
14:00 Web 3.0 round table – A techo-philosophical debate by Philipp Egli
What happens if you put together a CEO of a security company, the developer of the first application server based on the W3C’s semantic standards, an analytical philosopher with a technical background and all will be moderated by the CTO of one of the freshest internet companies of Switzerland? We don’t know it yet. But what’s for sure: We will be demonstrating working examples of semantic web technologies. We would be happy to see you and participate on killing the web 2.0. More details will follow soon….
16:00 Lifestream – Visualizing my data by Jan-Christoph Zoels
Explorations of large quantity information visualization
Current technologies allow people to capture, warehouse and retrieve vast amounts of data; more information than we can comprehend as individuals – more than we will ever need. As we move through our days, generating text messages, phone calls, photos, documents, and their inherent metadata, we are not conscious of the cloud of information that we create and carry with us.
In a world where we are constantly bombarded by more information than we can process, it is tempting to entrust this information to computers to store and organise for us. It is tempting to think that the more we store, the safer our memories and important ideas are. We let paradigms that are logical for computers govern the way our personal data is organised and accessed, at the expense of more human forms of interaction.
This workshop explores new paradigms to overcome the defects of current visualization methods. How can interfaces support traditional ways of coping with large amounts of information? How best can we facilitate such cognitive processes such as forgetting and constructing memories? Can our data be presented to us in such a way that it accrues layers of meaning, enhances nostalgia about our past, keeps us in contact with the present, while aiding us in thinking ahead? How can we design information patterns to make visible the connections, patterns and coincidences in our lives, remind us of favourite memories and moments, and allow all that is no longer relevant to fall away like dust.
The workshop by Willem Boijens, Vodafone, and Jan-Christoph Zoels, Experientia will introduce insights and examples of information visualizations, engage the participants in interactive exercises and team discussions.
Room 18:
10:00 KashKlash: the Game! by Heather Moore
Join us for an action-packed workshop to explore alternative methods of exchange. The focus is on a possible future ecosystem – in a new world where today’s aging, less useful and even dangerous financial systems are replaced by (or mixed with) more disruptive innovations and exchanges. Imagine yourself deprived of all of today’s financial resources. Maybe you’re a refugee or stateless. Yet you still have your handset and laptop and Internet and a broadband cellphone connection….
This is one of the provocations posed on KashKlash, an open forum and web project focusing on alternative economies in a post-money future. What will such a world look like? How will the concept of value be measured? What concepts will shape the formal and informal economies? Bright thinkers from around the world came together online to discuss, debate and ideate in this innovative and exciting project.
KashKlash is a collaborative project between Heather Moore of Vodafone, Experientia and a group of independent visionaries. The project started with four bright and innovative provocateurs, Nicolas Nova, Joshua Klein, Bruce Sterling, and Régine Debatty, and as the debate gathered steam, contributions, comments, flickr photos and twitter streams rolled in from more than 50 additional participants to shape and envision possible futures.
14:00 Coworking Space, Home, Traditional Workspace, … ? Where will you work tomorrow ? by Pierre Belcari
Are you looking for a better place to work? A professional environment, more flexible, with opportunities to interact with others? Are you a member of a COWORKING space? Or are you still hanging around between your HOME and COFFEE SHOPS? Or are you located in a traditional WORKSPACE or a SERVICED OFFICE?
16:00 Dreamer’s Corner: Founding a New, Tech-based and Crisis-‘enwisened’ Economical Space? by Tim Anglade
The Lift Conference is a place to discuss and work on how technology challenges and creates opportunities in our society. At a time of undeniable turmoil, it seems sensible to take a look at how Technology can affect a component that is particularly intertwined with our Western strain of Society: the Economy.
We may be headed for a full-scale economical doomsday. Or not. Either way, some recent trends are hard to ignore.
- We are welcoming new methods of exchanging goods and currency. We have seen the rise of eBay and Amazon and those two, along others, seem to be here to stay. Contactless identification and payment systems (NFC) are gaining traction and are approaching full-scale deployment in western markets after a successful launch in Japan. Other consumer payment solutions (notably, phone-based solutions) are also quickly advancing through industry efforts.
- We are participating in the emergence of new markets. Micropayments, a marquis thought and work subject of the 90s, seems to regain interest in technological and economical circles, notably through micro-loans and on “small” payments (Premium SMS, Facebook gifts, pay-as-you-go Cloud services, online donation drives, etc.). Emerging countries are engaging in B2C and C2C using alternative, technological means. In Côte d’Ivoire, where less than 5% of the population has a bank account but 30% has a cell phone, a functioning economical space has emerged, relying in part on cell-phone to cell-phone money transfers.
- We may be witnessing the advent of a new economical spirit. The global market downturn of 2008 and 2009 is the source of many pleas for an update to our economy. From re-enforced calls from the far Left to get rid of Capitalism, to elements on the Right advocating a more responsible market. The idea of a “new Bretton Woods” seems to be advancing and epitomizes a world-wide striving for new or updated solutions.
The question is: can these currents amount to something larger than just superficial change? Rather than hope on the advent of a new economy, are those signs that a new economical sub-space can be (semi-)realistically expected, welcomed, fostered or advanced? If not, which are the smaller, separate challenges and opportunities we could face?
