So the year 2009 is over and with it the first decade of the new millennium. A perfect moment to look back and ahead to assess what was and what will be. We already did this for Sandbox with our Year in Review and Roadmap for 2010 blog posts.

But of course, it’s not just about us. What else happened? If you have trouble remembering, this great video from Newsweek should get you started: It summarizes the last decade in 7 breathtaking minutes. To dig a bit deeper, we recommend the New York Magazine’s exhaustive “Encyclopedia of Counterintuitive Thought” for the last decade (including the realization that amateurs are better than experts and that being smart doesn’t get you ahead).

But there was also a lot going just last year. We’ll just point you to this long collection of “2009 lists” where you’ll find everything from the freakiest commercials to the best red carpet moments of 2009.

And what will 2010 bring us? We don’t know exactly, but these ten great business ideas from last year might prove disruptive in this one. We also liked some of HBR’s “breakthrough ideas” for twenty-ten, and we agree with basically all of the web trends predictions that CNN published.

Whatever 2010 wil bring – we’re excited that it’s here!

Image by Hamachii on Flickr

Nico has co-founded Sandbox and is currently working on a list of topics that WE think will be huge in 2010. We’ll publish it here in a few days.

Among our guests we were lucky to have Zurich based Sandboxer Dominik Grolimund. Dominik just received the 2009 Swiss ICT Award for his company Wuala, a technology firm with a revolutionary approach for secure online storage. Dominik discussed cyber-security with future Sandboxer Jade Nester, who is an international telecommunications expert in the Office of Communication and Information Policy at the US Department of State. Sandboxer Nils Remmel, who is visiting Washington for several weeks to conduct PhD research at the IMF, had an engaging conversation with law student Mike Raykher about the recent financial collapse.

It was also a great pleasure to welcome four new members to the Washington DC Sandbox scene, including Eric Kuhn (a rising journalist, commentator, and Audience Interaction Producer at CNN), Nick O’Neill (Founder of Socialtimes.com and well known social media expert), Alexander Zachary Girod (Founder Legal River), and Arthur Sabintsev (PhD student studying theoretical nuclear physics while writing popular Firefox extensions on the side).

Future Sandboxer Don Ball (Founder of Global Catalyst Group—an organization with similar values and goals as Sandbox) shared his vision for empowering Gen Y leaders with a voice in tackling some of the major challenges facing our generation. We were also excited to have future Sandboxer Robbie Gross (media coordinator for Newt Gingrich), talented photojournalist Mark Abramson, technology enthusiast George Ivanov, and up and coming Georgetown entrepreneur Crystal Ding. Future members Denis Baranov and Anton Zolotov shared their experience working on a new start up they hope will revolutionize online event publishing.

As all Sandbox dinners, Friday’s gathering generated fresh ideas, contacts, and future collaborations. With the continued expansion of the DC Sandbox community, we hope to create even further inter-city collaboration between our US Sandbox hubs in New York City, San Francisco, and other growing Sandbox hubs around the world.

Paul Gleger is Head of US Business Marketing and is the Washington DC Sandbox Ambassador. He has been part of the energetic Sandbox team for over two months and loves telling others about Sandbox’s mission to connect the most inspiring young leaders and innovators from around the world.