Welcome to mTrends! This is my personal blog where I write about mobile media lifestyle, trends, ideas and opinion on anything mobile.

I am a Mobile Strategist, Business Angel and Entrepreneur. A native of Belgium, I lived in Barcelona for the past 10 years, until recently, relocating to London. A key networker and public speaker, I am driven by one great passion: foster innovation with a focus on Next Generation Mobile Services. I have been working in Internet media since 1995 and in mobile since 1999. My current focus is on mobile innovation in Africa.

I am a Founding Partner of NYOTA MEDIA - the world’s first growth agency for innovative African entrepreneurs, start-ups and international companies that use technology to improve the lives of Africans.

In Barcelona, I co-founded dotopen.com in 2007, and AppCircus, in 2010, a value creation on-line platform for developers, and the world’s first travelling showcase and app competition, sourcing innovative apps and developers around the world. dotopen also organises the annual Mobile Premier Awards.

I co-founded MobileMonday Spain in 2006 and joined the Mobile 2.0 Advisory to organise the seminal Mobile 2.0 events in San Francisco and Barcelona.

Over the past 10 years, I have been a senior advisor and strategist for many top corporate brands within the mobile ecosystem including Telefonica, Vodafone, MTN, Orange, Telcel, Samsung, Nokia, BlackBerry, Intel, Louis Vuitton, Philippe Starck and Admob, amongst others.

In 2010, I curated Mobile Trends 2020, a collaborative outlook on the trends in mobile and its sequel Mobile Trends 2020 Africa in 2011.

I am a graduate from Singularity University and have lectured at conferences such as Web 2.0 Expo, The Next Web, PICNIC, next, MIDEM and MIPTV.

In my free time, I study the saxophone, enjoy art, music, travelling, running and yoga; a father of three grown daughters, I live happily with my fiance and my step-son.

Advisor, Strategy & Market Development – Enabling Next Generation Mobile & Web Services Strategies

Professionally one could describe me as a creative, visionary, thoughtful and self-motivated strategist with excellent inter-personal and communication skills in several languages, and technology platform experience across the Internet, Mobile Internet and Wireless Media.

I work with start-ups and established brands focusing on next-generation mobile services where I assist them with brand building, positioning, identifying market opportunities and business models, creating strategic alliances, funding opportunities and competitive intelligence to help these companies commercialize their technologies in a global market, using open innovation.

Well-connected among key players in the digital media distribution and global mobile value chain players, I am passionate for the new and the innovative and not afraid of mixing the unmixable. I am fluent in Dutch, English, French and Spanish.

I’ve worked on projects as diverse as R&D, competitive intelligence analysis, digital concept, content and event development, mobile and digital music distribution, building communities, social network analysis and development, and content integration of Web and Mobile 2.0 technologies.

For the European Commission, I have worked on coordinating technology and partnerships for the European Cities of Culture project in 1999-2000. I also worked on a European research project on Music, Multilingualism and Mobility in 2004-05. With dotopen.com, I currently work on a new EU research project on open data and mobility, called Open Cities.

Feel free to contact me at my regular email adress: rudy AT m-trends DOT org.

Tags:

open innovation open innovation strategic planning strategy business development market research brand building branding mobile services web services convergence next generation ecosystem user-generated mobile 2.0 networking mobile web mobile marketing ubicomp augmented reality paradigm disruptive technology events blog moblogs moblogs blogs lbs location communities wikinomics social media mobilemonday collaborative media network trends lifestyle usability