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Coming to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress? Don’t miss the MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona 2008! Sticking with MobileMonday’s recipe for success, the event will cook up a bunch of fresh innovations mixed with honest feedback and a dash of fun. Served with plenty of juicy networking at the NEW Espacio Movistar in Barcelona on Monday February 11 starting at 2:30PM.

The MobileMonday Peer Awards are recognised by the industry as one of THE interesting events in the mobile industry. Last year’s Barcelona Peer Awards event attracted 23 competitors, the MoMo community award went to Mobile Complete, the audience award to Plazes, and the expert jury award to Realeyes 3D. Check the Peer Awards 2007 Flickr Group pictures and winners’ announcement here.

Mr. Pekka Ala-Pietila, former president at Nokia Corporation and currently chief executive officer of Blyk Corporation, a virtual mobile operator in the UK, will be the keynote speaker.

The event concept is pretty similar as last year: every MobileMonday chapter is invited to nominate one startup to the Peer Awards Barcelona 2008. This year, we’ll divide the start-up finalist presentations in two categories: early-stage start-ups (founded in 2007, early-stage financing) and emerging start-ups (founded in 2005 and after, inbetween Series A & B funding). The organizing committee and jury selects the finalists to present at the awards event. Entrance into the running is free! Check the Peer Awards website for details.

There will be three awards in each category: jury, audience, and community (MoMo chapters). This year’s winners at the MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona will also be invited to participate in the Innovation Pad activities at the MobileMonday Global Summit in conjunction with the World Congress on IT in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 18-22, 2008.

Master of Ceremony is once again Mrs. Caroline Lewko, from the Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP).

The jury consists of some of the most recognized mobile industry experts and thinkers, currently confirmed:

• Carlos Domingo, General Director, Telefonica R&D;
• Ann Mei Chang, Mobile Engineering Director Google;
• Bena Roberts, Founder and Chief Analyst at BKI Media / GoMo News;
• Russell Buckley, Managing Director, AdMob Europe / Vice-Chairman of MMA’s EMEA;
• Carlo Longino, Mobhappy;
• Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone Group;
• Madamohan Rao, Editor, The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook;
• Jed Rice,VP, Market Development, Skyhook Wireless;
• Peter Vesterbacka, Founder, Some Bazaar;
• Jouko Ahvenainen, Chief Operating Officer, Xtract;
• Michael Wendell, General partner, Nexit Ventures;
• Sirous Kavehercy, Strategist and Consultant, Market Development Director at Acision;

The MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona 2008 are being organized collaboratively by the MobileMonday community and hosted by MobileMonday Barcelona. The event is free but you must register in advance since the 800 places will go quickly.

I wanted to thank my readers, collegues, online buddies and friends for sharing some great moments with me this year. Some of you I just met but already left an impression, and others I enjoyed working together on innovative projects and events, or just exchanged opinion on the mobile phone and its interaction between people and objects.

One of the main drivers in my work is to innovate through collaboration, meet wonderful and diverse people that keep things interesting, dashed with spirit and surprise and truly unique… it really enriches my life.

From the Peer Awards in Barcelona, ¡nnovate!Europe in Zaragoza, TechTalk in Menorca, the Global Summit in Helsinki & St. Petersburg, Mobile 2.0 in San Francisco, Under The Radar in Mountain View and LeWeb3 in Paris, there were man great moments and events, not to forget the many MobileMonday events we organised this year in Barcelona and launched in Madrid … I enjoyed every bit of 2007.

I’m already looking forward to some new projects starting in 2008 and events like DLD Munich, Lift 08 in Geneva and another Peer Awards in Barcelona, stay tuned on mTrends!

Special kudos to Kelly and Lisa at gotomedia, Russell and Carlo at MobHappy, Caroline, Carles, Francesco and Gabriel, Jari and all MobileMonday chapter organizers, Carlos and his team, Debbie and her team, Peter and his team, Markus, Barcelona Media, IE Business School, Gregory, Mike, Peter and Daniel from Mobile 2.0 Conference, Steve and his team at Taptu, Prash, Raimo and last but not least my collegue bloggers and anyone working on innovative mobile technology.

I wish you all a very happy new year and a prosperous and successful 2008.

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

I pulled out my winter socks and warm underwear since I’m off for a couple of days for some cool breeze up north in Helsinki and St. Petersburg for the MobileMonday Global Summit.

The first MoMo Global Summit in May 2005 brought together all existing four chapters (Tokyo, Silicon Valley, Italy, and Helsinki) and some 600 delegates. By last year’s second Summit, there were already 17 chapters in operation and some 1000 delegates attending. As of today, MobileMonday organization has launched 40 new chapters (including the September launches in Philadelphia, Caracas, Adelaide, and Jakarta) and is expecting 1.500 delegates! Next in line chapters are Moscow, Estonia, Oslo, Shenzhen, and some more soon to be anounced. This is really amazing!

This is going to be fun, 17 of my Facebook friends are going to be present - and a lot of them are not just yet on Facebook. Not sure how the blogging and connections are going to be the next days, you’ll most probably find me twittering or on Jaiku and for pictures at my Flickr page of course. You can catch all of this in one nice RSS Feed on Tumblr too. Stay tuned!

Next week I’m heading north to participate and enjoy the 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit! The event will take place on September 10th in Helsinki, Finland.

The 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit brings together leaders from mobile business. Around fifteen hundred participants from around the globe are expected to attend the conference held at the Wanha Satama Fair Center. In the same spirit as the monthly MobileMonday meetings held in over 50 hotspots around the world, the MobileMonday Global Summit brings together mobile industry influencers from down the street and around the world.

On Sunday - the day before the summit, we gather with most of the global MobileMonday chapter organizers and on Monday the Global Summit program opens with the Executive Morning with keynotes from some of the best thinkers in the business. In the afternoon there are various sessions covering three main themes: Mobile Entertainment, Mobile Marketing and Social Media.

I’m invited to participate in the Mobile Social Media Panel, including Kathie Legg, now at Yahoo, Gregory Norman from The Open Group and Bruno Bensaid from MobileMonday Shanghai, China. The panel promises an interesting discussion on this topic with views from Europe, US and Asia.

There is also additional excursion to Saint Petersburg, Russia. The local MobileModay Chapter will organize an event for decision makers, who are interested to meet local business leaders.

I’m really looking forward next week to meet the chapter organizers again. Since I decided to start MobileMonday Barcelona this has been a great ride organizing great events on a monthly basis, some with international reach such as the MobileMonday Global Peer Awards earlier this year druing 3GSM. I have met lots of interesting people from around the globe and the network keeps growing every month. Stay tuned for more news coming soon on new events here.

After the Saint Petersburg trip, I’m staying another day in Helsinki to meet with local start-ups. Anyone who would like to catch up with me, please get in touch by email (click my name in the sidebar on the right).

It is time to mark your calendars for the 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit! The event will take place on 10 September 2007 in Helsinki.

The 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit brings together leaders from mobile business on September 10th 2007. Around fifteen hundred participants from around the globe are expected to attend the conference held at the Wanha Satama Fair Center in Helsinki, Finland.

In the same spirit as the monthly MobileMonday meetings held in over 50 hotspots around the world, the MobileMonday Global Summit brings together mobile industry influencers from down the street and around the world.

The program begins with straight talk from some of the best thinkers in the business during the MobileMonday Executive Morning. There will be three main themes: Mobile Music, Mobile Marketing and Social Media.

There is also additional excursion to St. Petersburg, Russia. The local MobileModay Chapter will organize an event for decision makers, who are interested to meet local business leaders. More information coming up on the MobileMonday website soon. Stay tuned for the list of keynote speakers and panelist.

The second annual MobileMonday Global Peer Awards were held yesterday in Helsinki, Finland as a part of the MobileMonday Global Summit. The award for best consumer product or service was won by the Candian finalist ComVu for PocketCaster. The best business product or service was awarded to the Japanese finalist, Opera, for its Opera 8 Mobile Browser for BREW.PocketCaster is the indutry’s first live mobile video broadcast platform. The Opera 8 browser for BREW offers mobile phone users speed and usability by design, always in line with the latest developments in the Opera desktop browser.

According Peter Vesterbacka of HP, Finland’s judge in the Global Peer Awards competition ”There were hundreds of entrants into the competition and overall the level of products and services were very high. Yesterday’s finals consisted of very different kinds of products and services from around the world.” The judging was done by 15 representatives from various MobileMonday chapters.

Altogether there were 11 finalists in this year’s Global Peer Awards representing the best mobility products and services the world has to offer. Photographs from the event can be downloaded here.

The MobileMonday Global Peer Awards are produced in cooperation with Nokia and Nexit Ventures. MobileMonday was founded in 2000 as a community of Finnish mobile professionals. The open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

Active MobileMonday chapters have been established in the following cities: Austin, Bangkok, Barcelona, Beijing, Boston, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, New York, Paris, Rome, San Diego, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Singapore, Tokyo, Toronto and Vancouver.

MobileMonday events provide a neutral forum where the industry can freely exchange ideas and network amongst a diverse group of participants.

Tags: MobileMonday Global Summit Peer Awards