This week I will be at the NEXT-conference:

Europe’s leading Internet conference will be held in Berlin. The motto of next10 is “Game Changers”, and the conference will offer 40 hours of events with international speakers over two days on three stages at STATION-Berlin.

My talk on Wednesday will be an update on the Virtual Happiness Project, which was launched on the PicNic-Conference in 2008 (Does the Internet make you happy?) and about which I spoke at TED 2009 as well (Can you live without the Internet). My theme for this year will be “How can we avoid the next epidemic?”

It’s basically the end conclusion of the project. We’ve gathered enough information to know what drives virtual happiness (online social interaction) and we know what frustrates our virtual happiness (the inability to handle digital information we were used to in the fysical world). So, what is left is a call for action to take way this last barrier towards a better online well-being. Let’s see if we can stop the impending epidemic of infobesity.

More information about NEXT10
“Over the course of five years, the next conference has become the most important European conference for the digital and creative economy,” said Matthias Schrader, founder and CEO of interactive agency SinnerSchrader. “We are coming to Berlin to take the next step in our development, and we’ve found the right partner in STATION-Berlin, the organiser of the international PREMIUM fashion fair.”

Two keynotes will open the conference at 9 a.m. on the day before, 11 May. Peter Lovatt, aka Dr Dance, used to be illiterate and is now regarded as the founder of modern dance studies. John Rogers is reinventing the automobile industry with Local Motors. At 11 a.m. there will be a presentation by Louis Rossetto, the founder of WIRED magazine who is now revolutionising the production of chocolate with TCHO.

The second day of the conference will open with futurist and hacker Pablos Holman, co-developer of the world’s smallest PC. MP3 inventor Karlheinz Brandenburg will present a keynote at 1:30 p.m. on the topic of “How to be a Game Changer”.

Click here to see the the nextconf programma. See you in Berlin!