LeWeb Paris is less than a month away and conference organizers Loic and Geraldine Le Meur just posted this year’s schedule . The theme of the event, which is scheduled to run from December 4th to 6th, is “The Internet of Things.” There is a clear focus on connected hardware, with speakers like Nest ‘s Tony Fadell and Fitbit ‘s James Park, as well as representatives from companies like Lifx Lightbulbs and Lockitron . NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity will also make a cameo appearance. Benjamin Cichy – the chief software engineer of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory who built the software at the core of the rover’s brain – is scheduled to cap off the first day of presentations.
Besides regular hardware, there will also be a focus on connecting the body to the Internet, with speakers like cyborg anthropologist (and Geoloqi co-founder and CEO) Amber Case, Interaxon’s Ariel Garten and Double Robotics ‘ David Cann. As usual, there will be speakers from big companies, including Twitter, Facebook, Google, PayPal, Pandora, WordPress, Dropbox and Evernote, as well as some off-theme talks from Scott Harrison (Charity Water), and Scott Dunlap, who runs a marathon every week. There will also be a startup competition and a track of talks dedicated to social business . TechCrunch (which is one of LeWeb’s official media partners) will once again have a strong presence at the event. Our co-editor Alexia Tsotsis is scheduled to interview Voxer founder and CEO Tom Katis. TechCrunch’s European Editor Mike Butcher will moderate a VC panel entitled “Money Makes The World Go Round,” and I will interview ZeptoLab chairman and CEO Misha Lyalin.