Rights Here, Right Now Women Countdown to AIDS 2010

Vienna, Austria will host the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010), the largest international meeting on HIV and AIDS from July 18 – 23, 2010.

Theme of AIDS 2010

The AIDS 2010 conference theme, Rights Here, Right Now emphasises the central importance of protecting and promoting human rights as a prerequisite to a successful response to HIV. The right to dignity and self-determination for key affected populations, to equal access to health care and life-saving prevention and treatment programmes, and the right to interventions based on evidence rather than ideology, are all incorporated in this urgent demand for action.

Rights Here, Right Now emphasises that concrete human rights measures need to be in place to protect those most vulnerable to and affected by HIV, especially women and girls, people who use drugs, migrants, prisoners, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and transgender persons.

Rights Here, Right Now also emphasises the location of the conference in Vienna, chosen in part for its proximity to Eastern Europe and Central Asia – a region experiencing one of the fastest growing epidemics that is fuelled primarily by injecting drug use. It also underscores this critical moment in time for the global epidemic – with the 2010 deadline that world leaders set for providing universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support on the immediate horizon. Rights Here, Right Now is a call for leadership, accountability and action.

The AIDS 2010 programme will present new scientific knowledge and offer many opportunities for structured dialogue on the major issues facing the global response to HIV. A variety of session types – from abstract-driven presentations to symposia, bridging sessions and plenaries – will meet the needs of various participants. Other related activities, including the Global Village, satellite meetings, exhibitions and affiliated events, will contribute to an exceptional opportunity for professional development and networking.

The AIDS 2010 website

Entheogenesis Australis is just around the bend

6-9 November 2009
Swanpool, Victoria
http://www.entheo.net/

Bear Owsley will be speaking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley

The Entheogenesis Australis 2009 Conference aims to address the issues relating to drug use/misuse from social, cultural and
historical/traditional perspectives. EGA speakers will draw on the backgrounds of physiology, biology, pharmacology, psychology,
neuroscience, anthropology, botany and more to provide a more realistic context to the role drugs and altered states play in the modern world.

If you’ve ever asked yourself “has the ‘War on Drugs’ created more problems than it tried to solve?” or “is MDMA really a more dangerous drug than alcohol?” – then EGA is for you.

Entheogenesis Australis is a collection of thinkers from all walks of life, we come together to share knowledge about sacred plants, chemical alchemy and states of consciousness.

New York, Threading the Needle, The Future of Fashion Design Conference

NFashion Research Institute invites you to attend Threading the Needle: The Future of Fashion Design, the first virtual world-based fashion design conference in history.

Fashion design is changing rapidly in response to many factors. The recent economic collapse, coupled with a coming petroleum crisis and a wave of new technologies with a global emphasis have sent ripples through the industry. Young designers and design students are faced with an array of choices for their careers, many of which weren’t even an option a few years ago.

Threading the Needle gathers eight fashion industry thought leaders to present their views on a range of topics designed to help a global audience of new designers and fashion designers ‘thread their needle’ and launch their careers. And as anyone who has ever had hand sewn a hem knows, there is a trick to threading a needle.

Join in on Thursday, December 3rd from 8 am – 5 pm EDT at this free conference for fashion design students and new designers.
Details, etc: at Shengri La Fashion Institute Blog

Endangered Sounds Conference

Australasian Sound Recordings Association – 2009 Conference

Thursday 20th and Friday 21st August 2009
National Library of Australia – Canberra, Australia

In an age of rapid environmental, social and technological change, the sounds of our world are noticeably disappearing. These sounds form an essential component in the fabric of our cultures, and the ability to preserve these sonic environments is a necessity. Conference themes include capturing the shifting soundscapes of humanity, vanishing natural environments, impermanence of installation and performance works, virtual sounds in virtual spaces, endangered languages and community collections. Selected Australian professionals and practitioners will present powerful ideas regarding the past and future of our sounds.

Composer and sound artist William Duckworth will deliver the keynote address entitled Endangered Sounds of the Future, with Indigenous curator Liz McNiven delivering the annual Alice Moyle Lecture. Drawing together a wide range of knowledge and experience, conference papers will be presented by curatorial, technical and archival experts, as well as creative and academic practitioners
in the sound arts. The speakers include sound recordist Greg Simmons, Aboriginal language linguist Michael Walsh, innovative environmental recording system designer Neil Boucher, Vincent Plush, Kevin Bradley and more.

The 2009 Endangered Sounds conference will be held in the National Library of Australia’s theatre in parallel with the National Film and Sound Archive’s 2009 Sound Week activities.  Of special interest is the announcement of the 2009 selection of ten Sounds of Australia for inclusion in the National Registry of Recorded Sound, announced by the Honourable Peter Garrett, Minister for Environment, Heritage and the Arts at the NFSA on Sound Day, Wednesday 19th August.

For conference registration please see the website: www.asra.asn.au or for more information contact:
Shelly Grant: sgrant@nla.gov.au or (02) 6262 1545.

Greening ICT towards Sustainability Conference

Friday 15 – Saturday 16 May 2009
10min from Ballarat, 80min from Melbourne

ICT Professionals, investigate how they can be more environmentally sensitive in the use of computing and how they can mitigate against future risks. Hear Symantec’s presentation on Green IT: The Colour of Money, hear how Intel is helping deliver Energy Efficiency and Innovation through Eco Technology, discover how the ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) or Carbon Trading will impact on the ICT Industry, listen to speakers talk about Cloud Computing, Sustainable Business and how ICT is contributing to solving issues with Water Management.

This year again, you will have the opportunity to add your experience and knowledge in the Symposium discussions where you can have your say on such diverse topics as The Carbon Footprint, Virtual IT Environments, Innovation & New Technology, ICT Sustainability & its Impact in the Environment, Recycle & Re-use and much, much more.

Conference registration includes a comprehensive and exciting two day Conference Program, Catering (morning tea, lunch & afternoon tea on Friday & Saturday), Pre Dinner Drinks and Conference Dinner.

Novotel Forest Resort
1500 Midland Highway
Creswick, Vic 3363

Register at http://tinyurl.com/d79mzq

“Impostor Syndrome” hampers women’s rise to top of IT tree

A keynote speaker at the Connecting Up conference in Sydney, May 11-12, 2009 will present a case for the “Impostor Syndrome” as a key reason women do not embrace success in IT careers.

Jody Mahoney, Vice President, Business Development, at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology: http://www.anitaborg.org, will discuss the syndrome reported by many successful women that they often feel as if their achievements are a fluke. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_Syndrome

Jody will also explore in another presentation “tools to engage in the dynamic, fun, unpredictable, and always interesting world of raising money on behalf of NGOs”.

The 3rd annual Australian Community Technology Awards will be presented at a gala dinner on Monday May 11.

Tracey Fellows, managing director of Microsoft; Google Australia’s head of engineering, Alan Noble; and Martin Stewart-Weeks, Chair of the Australia Social Innovation Exchange, join the international speaker lineup, which also includes:

Cheryl Kernot – Centre for Social Impact, University of NSW
Mark Pesce – Social network guru, writer, New Inventors panelist
Monique Potts – Digital Media Project Manager at the ABC
Peter Deitz – founder and Executive Director of www.socialactions.com
Allen Gunn – Executive Director Aspiration www.aspirationtech.org

A full program of workshops and breakout sessions is available at http://www.connectingup.org/conference/program.

The conference will be held at the Novotel Brighton Le Sands, Sydney, Australia from May 11-12.

About Connecting Up Australia
Connecting Up Australia is a community-based nonprofit organisation. It operates the Donortec technology donation program for nonprofits (http://www.donortec.com.au),which has channelled over $40m in technology donations to nonprofits in the past two years, the annual Connecting Up conference on nonprofit technology issues and the annual Australian Community Technology Awards. In 2008 its CEO, Doug Jacquier, received the Innovator of the Year award in the Equity Trustees Nonprofit CEO Awards.

BlogHer09

BlogHer09 is the fifth annual conference for an online community focused on creating opportunities for women whoblog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. The theme for this year’s BlogHer conference is “In Real Life”—an attempt to emphasize what blogging has brought everyone in their “real life.”

BlogHer ‘09 will be at the The Chicago Sheraton and Towers from July 23-25, 2009. They will kick off on Thursday July 23rd with the 3rd annual BlogHer Business Conference, and will continue with the two-day 5th annual BlogHer Annual Conference on Friday and Saturday, July 24-25.

More from BlogHer09

ReGenerating Community Conference

Call for Papers & Presentations

The ReGenerating Community Conference is about ways in which global issues are being addressed locally through collaborations between artists, communities and local government.

While there is a growing literature around the correlation between involvement in creative or artistic activity and improved health and well-being, the links between creative communities and civic engagement are less well documented.

Demonstration of this link could have significant effects on the development of public policy and the targeting of resources to community-based arts projects.

Papers are invited on the conference themes:

• addressing global issues locally through collaborations between artists, communities and local government
• the links between creative communities and civic engagement
• the ways creative processes can mobilize communities for positive social change
• cultural citizenship and cultural rights, as an aspect of a broader human rights agenda

In part the conference grows out of Generations, a three year project sponsored by the Australia Council on enhancing the relationship between community art and local governance. Generations was initiated by the Cultural Development Network, Victoria, and conducted across five local government areas in Victoria, NSW, and Queensland to explore the links between engagement in community based arts activities and active civic engagement.

The conference will include keynote presentations, parallel papers, panel discussions, ‘on-the-couch’ conversations, case studies and artists’ responses. Formal presentations and an interactive arts program will be integrated to make a lively program.

Proposals are invited from local, interstate and overseas presenters including academics in cultural studies and social policy; councillors and local government workers from arts and culture, community services, economic development, community, social urban and environmental planning; public policy developers and community leaders, artists and arts workers engaged with communities.

Proposals for non-traditional formats such as film, video and performance are welcome. Proposals for whole panels to explore specific topics are also encouraged.

Second round of proposals: April 30, 2009

Being held – Sept 2 – 4, 2009. RMIT University, Melbourne

International Symposium on Wearable Computers – Call for Papers

ISWC’09, the thirteenth annual IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, is the premier forum for wearable computing and issues related to on-body and worn mobile technologies. ISWC’09 will bring together researchers, product vendors, fashion designers, textile manufacturers, users, and related professionals to share information and advances in wearable computing.
 
ISWC’09 invites to submit original work in one or more of the following formats: full papers, notes, posters, late breaking results, demonstrations, videos, tutorials and workshops.
 
*SUBMISSION DEADLINES*
 
Papers & Posters                 March 30, 2009
Workshops & Tutorials            February 1, 2009
Late Breaking Results            May 18, 2009
Design Contest                   May 18, 2009
 
ISWC’09 will be held from September 4-7, 2009 in Linz (Austria). Tutorial/Workshops September 4, Doctoral Colloquium September 4, Main Conference September 5-7, 2009.
 
All details or for subscription to the ISWC 2009 Alert Ticker: www.iswc.net
or info@iswc.net

Spaces of Art Conference

An international conference on institutional / post-institutional curatorial and related practices in contemporary art. Convenors: Reuben Keehan and Blair French

Spaces of Art engages questions crucial to the future of art institutions and their relationship to contemporary practice in the 21st century, with particular reference to curatorial and artistic strategies in Australia and the Asia-Pacific.

Within recent curatorial debates, the term ‘new institutionalism’ has described a tendency toward the incorporation of the principles of institutional critique into institutional practice. Particularly visible in Europe, new institutionalism has its origins of the shift of key independent curators into directorial roles in the late 1990s, but also in the perceived need for galleries and museums to provide a more sympathetic platform for the increasingly participatory, process-based and self-reflexive practices of contemporary art. With its emphasis on transience, open-endedness and social experiment, and its placement of discursive activities such as education and publishing on equal footing with the more conventional exhibition function of galleries, new institutionalism draws as much from the working methods of artist-run initiatives as it does from social and cultural theory.

The final list of participants is posted on the website. The two days of conference presentations will comprise a mix of formal presentations and discussion panels within three session groupings—‘Institutional Critique or Institutionalised Criticism?’, ‘Spaces and Sites: Australia and New Zealand’ and ‘Alternatives in Asia: History, Context, Current Practices and Critiques.’

Spaces of Art is presented by Artspace Visual Arts Centre in association with the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Art Association of Australia and New Zealand (NSW Chapter). This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its Arts Funding and Advisory body.

http://www.artspace.org.au/public_archive/conference_spacesofart

Conference
17 – 18 April 2009
Artspace Visual Arts Centre & Art Gallery of New South Wales