Up-LIFT-ing

So, this is a little later than planned, but more on that next.

Last Weds-Fri I spent my time in Geneva at the Lift09 conference and I have to say I had great fun there!

Weds was taken up with workshops, so I went to the Web of Things in the morning session and then 'What can we get out of the lift community for the other 362 days of the year?' in the first afternoon session. Another I wanted to go to in the second part of the afternoon was fully booked, but was videoed so I intend to catch up later.

Thursday and Friday were both talks, which I found really varied and interesting. Some were more than a little bonkers, such as carnivorous robotics and one woman's story about when she walked around Australia. Others were about such things as 'metromantics' (an idea I rather liked) or a project in Cameroon for women to find husbands online. The big finale on Friday evening was Vint Cerf from Google, who invented the protocols for TCP/IP and is one of the reasons we even have internet. So, basically an internet/geek demi-god.

Met with a fair few people too, was nice to recognise and talk to people at different points, and I played on the Atari in the breaks (hehe) - although Pong was pretty popular actually.

It was a really interesting time, and I'm going to apply for a student ticket next year to see if I can go again, which would be awesome! It's a very inspiring place to be/event to be part of.