Why is iCommons Summit going to be held in Sapporo?

Why is iCommons Summit 2008 going to be held in Sapporo?

Many people asks me this question.

It is not just because Sapporo has great sushi...
it is not just because they have a great beer festival during this period...
it is not just because its weather in Sapporo during the summer is wonderful...
it is not just because Sapporo was selected 2 years in a row as
" the most attractive city in Japan"...

Well, although they are all true, but those are not the most important things.


Sapporo calls itself the "Ideas City",
and has various creative and artistic projects:


Idea Agency

Sapporo City University is doing "Idea Agency" series of seminars
which is sponsored by Digital Garage.

-Larry Lessig and Joi was the first lecturer of this series,
and you can see the video of that lecture here:

-Second lecturer of this series is by Hiroyuki Nakano,
who is a big supporter of Creative Commons and he even came to
iCommons Summit 2007 in Croatia.

-10th lecturer of this series was Heather Ford of iCommons.

As all of those lecture series' videos are online and CC licensed,
people can freely watch and learn from those videos.


Idea Agency Videos

Sapporo City University and their students has been creating this series of videos,
and licensed them under Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND.
We are hoping to have a collaboration with the students of various schools and universities
including the Sapporo City University.

Episode 4: Joichi Ito
Episode 3: Heather Ford
Episode 2: For more talks Rising Sun Rock Festival in EZO
Episode 1: Rising Sun Rock Festival in EZO

"WESS" is the company that coordinates this Rising Sun Rock Festival,
and they ogranize majority of the concerts held in Sapporo,
and they have announced to support to coordinate the iCommons Summit 2008 concert.

S-air (Sapporo Artist in Residence program) was established back in 1999,
and they have much experience in supporting artist in residence programs.


Music Studio in Sapporo Art Park area has excellent facilities
as you can see in the video here, and we will be able to do some recordiing here in this studio.





Also, I should probably note that the mayor of Sapporo City
who strongly supports and welcomes iCommons Summit to be held in Sapporo
was formerly a lawyer and his understanding towards the CC and free culture movement
is not comparable to anywhere else.

We have started Metroblogging Sapporo last year,
so that we can have lots of information for you- when you come to Sapporo next July.

So I think there is so many reasons why iSummit2008 in Sapporo is going to be exciting,
but we are still in the planning phase, and would like to have
as many as people as possible to join our conversation.
We are very much open to proposals to make this a better summit!

To the people living in Asia- especially in Japan:
iSummit in the past were held in Boston, Rio, Dubrovnik which was very far from us.
At last it is held here in Asia, and probably will be in a different continent next time
to pursue fairness and variety.
Please be sure to mark up your calendar now- 7/30-8/1 in Sapporo!