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The Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee announced the selection of the presenting start-ups at Mobile 2.0 Europe on July 4 in Barcelona. Some 70 mobile start-up companies applied to present at Mobile 2.0 Europe conference. The committee was delightfully surprised with the quality of the ideas and technology of the start-ups coming from many different corners of Europe and the world.

Here are the selected start-up companies.

PRE SERIES A companies

kooaba (Switzerland) - Mobile Image Search
Mobiluck (France) - Mobile Location-based IM, Chat and Social Networking
Secufone (Netherlands) - Mobility and Safety
Unkasoft (Spain) - Mobile Advergaming
ViiF (Germany) - Mobile Entertainment Community

POST SERIES A companies

Futurlink (Spain) - Proximity Marketing
Nimbuzz (Netherlands) - Mobile IM and Text Message Service
Mippin (UK) - Mobilizing the Web
Palringo (UK) - Vocal Instant Messaging
Taptu (UK) - Mobile Social Search

Early-Stage companies

The presenters in this category will be announced the day of the event as to maintain the suspense.

During the event, all panel participants and organizers will vote their best Start-up in each category; the winner in each category receives an invitation to present at the Mobile 2.0 Event in San Francisco on November 3, 2008.

Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia will introduce the conference with a keynote.

Participants will enjoy C-Level speaker and panelist participations from other mobile industry players, such as AdMob, AMF Ventures, Atlas Venture, Bango, Blyk, Debaeque Capital, Fjord, Getjar, Google, itsmy.com (Gofresh), Nokia, M:Metrics, Orange, Stradbroke Advisors, T-Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Trutap, Vodafone, Yahoo!, and ZYB. The sessions will be moderated by some of Europe’s finest bloggers including Mike Butcher (TechCrunch UK), Peggy Anne Saltz (MSearchGroove) and Raimo van der Klein (SPRX Mobile).

Check the full speaker list and program agenda here.

There is a lot of interest from the industry to attend this event. Early-Bird tickets at €99 and Standard tickets at €149 are already sold out. Currently, there are some 20 tickets left at €199 (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included), after which tickets will be on sale at €299 (prices all excl. VAT). Attendants can purchase their ticket online at Amiando Mobile 2.0 Europe.

We are also organising a meetup with our media partner TechCrunch, the evening after the event; please contact Mike Butcher or info@dotopen.eu for more information on this event.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Nokia, Palringo, Taptu, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Bango, eBuddy and Mippin for their invaluable support.

Four weeks to go for the MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference and the program gets more and more exciting. Last week, Pekka Pohjakallio, Vice President, Suites Management and Marketing, Services and Software at Nokia was added as a keynote and Charlie Schick, Editor-in-Chief for Nokia Conversations will talk about Social Media as the fusion of mobile and internet, exploring the ties into the Mobile Semantic Web.

More than 70 startups registered to participate to the event. The Mobile 2.0 Europe selected start-ups in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A) will be announced next week.

The Open Platforms and New Application Areas Panel is also confirmed and will be moderated by Peggy Anne Salz, chief analyst and founder of MSearchGroove

Panelists include:

• Ray Anderson, CEO and founder, Bango
• Javier Pérez Dolset,CEO, Zed
• Alex Romero, Director Partnerships, Yahoo! Connected Life Europe
• Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist at Vodafone Group
• Peter Vesterbacka, Founder Some Bazaar

You can view complete speaker profiles here.

The Early-Bird tickets at € 99 and Standard tickets at € 149 are already Sold out. The next 50 tickets (Standard 2) are available at € 199 (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included). Late tickets will go at € 299 (prices all excl. VAT). So, don’t wait any longer to reserve your ticket if you’d like to attend. You can purchase tickets online here at Amiando Mobile 2.0 Europe.

Some free tickets will still be distributed on the Mobile 2.0 on Twitter channel, also handy to stay updated on latest news and updates on the event

Together with media partner TechCrunch, we’re organising a meetup the evening after the event; if your company would like to sponsor this meetup, please contact Mike Butcher or myself for more details. I can’t tell much more as of now, I’ll leave that for Mike to announce, but it’s going to be outside and near the beach

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference is heating up! More than 50 startups have already registered to participate to the event. The Mobile 2.0 Europe presenting start-ups will be selected in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A) - any start-up with a mobile application can apply. If you haven’t done so yet, you can still apply by filling in the online application form, deadline for submission is June 6, 2008 at midnight CET.

Taptu, Telefónica Movistar, Vodafone, Yahoo!, Bango, and Mippin joined us as sponsors to support the event and we’re going to announce some more high-level speakers the coming days.

Please take note that the Early Bird registration closes on May 31 (tickets at € 99,- only!), after that date tickets will cost €149,- (breakfast, lunch, coffee and networking cocktail included).

If you’re a blogger or press and you’d like to attend, please contact me directly.

Follow Mobile 2.0 on Twitter for news and updates on the event.

The Mobile 2.0 Conference is spreading its wings to Europe and will land on July 4 in Barcelona, Spain. This one-day event focusing on the Mobile Web and Disruptive Mobile Innovation, is brought to you by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee: Daniel Appelquist, Gregory Gorman, Mike Rowehl, Peter Vesterbacka and myself in partnership with ESADE.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of the mobile ecosystem, including startups, investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, and mobile application developers and web technologists.

The MOBILE 2.0 EUROPE conference is an opportunity for companies to connect to industry leadership and startup innovation and broaden your C-level relationships.

The event will be held at the Espacio ESADE FORUM, Barcelona and will run from 9:00am to 6:00pm with a reception at the Espacio ESADE FORUM afterward.

So, what can you expect? Two industry keynotes, four panels and three series of innovative startups presenting live-demos.

Panel speakers as of today include:

• Tony Fish, AMF Ventures
• Dr. Maximilian Niederhofer, Associate, Atlas Venture
• Inma Martinez, Director and Principal Advisor, Stradbroke Advisor
• Anil Hansjee, Head of Corporate Development - EMEA, Google Inc.
• Mike Butcher, editor TechCrunch UK & Ireland
• Chris Liu, Managing Director, Fjord
• Leif Fågelstedt, COO, Blyk
• Ilja Laurs, Founder & CEO of GetJar
• Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO GoFresh
• Raimo van der Klein, Co-founder SPRXmobile
• Martin Duval, CEO bluenove / Director of the Orange Start-Up Program
• Carlos Domingo, General Director of Telefonica R+D labs
• Unai Iturburu, Head of Vodafone Spain R&D

Check the full speaker list here.

The Mobile 2.0 Europe presenting start-ups will be selected in 3 Categories (Seed Capital Stage, Pre Series A and Post Series A). Any start-up company with a mobile application can participate. To apply and present your company and your application, you need to fill in the online application form. Deadline for submission is June 6, 2008 at midnight CET.

Seed Capital Stage and Pre Series A Start-ups will be selected by dotopen and the Mobile 2.0 organizing committee. Post Series A Start-ups will be selected in collaboration with the VC Panel. During the event, all panel participants and organizers will vote their best Start-up in each category; the winner in each category receives an invitation to present at the Mobile 2.0 Event in San Francisco on November 3, 2008.

Early Bird registration for this event is only € 99,- till May 31, after that date, tickets will cost €199,-Stay tuned! More goodies to be announced soon.

One of my favorite conferences last year, the MEX Mobile User Experience Conference, has published its agenda for this years’ conference on May 27-28 in London. Check the agenda and speaker list for full details.

A special discount is offered to mTrends readers (check details at the bottom of this post).

The conference helps executives to gain a deeper understand of customer behaviour and translate that knowledge into better mobile products. The key objective is raising awareness of user experience issues as a strategic priority for everyone in the value chain, encouraging the mobile business to put consumer needs at the heart of the industry.

It is a very different style of conference. Each event is researched and developed by a team with a passion for mobile and unique insight drawn from years of industry experience. Corporate pitches are outlawed, everyone plays a role in setting the agenda and we go to extraordinary lengths to provide the highest standards of service.

This years’ conference programme is based around a 10 point Manifesto (download pdf here) for enhancing the mobile user experience. Each of the 10 Manifesto statements is addressed through a diverse range of presentations, panel discussions and collaborative breakout groups.

Topics include…

1. Content itself will be the interface of the future
2. Handsets are no longer just for the hand
3. Fragmentation is the enemy of innovation
4. Fashion is a stronger motivator than functionality
5. The developing world is the new frontier for mobile user experience
6. Search requires a radically different approach in the mobile environment
7. Intelligent contact lists are the future centres of the user interface
8. Mobile payments herald the next generational shift
9. Users as individuals: uniquely complex and contradictory
10. The potential of smart voice

Some of the speakers include:

On the opening night there is also a reception to announce the Winners of the 2008 MEX Design Competition. Check it out, some really great stuff out there! If you design interfaces and have a compelling idea or product to delight customers and enhance the mobile user experience, you can still participate, the deadline for entries is 23:00 GMT, Friday, 2nd May 2008.

MEX is now less than 5 weeks away and, as with all previous MEX events, the organizers target to sell out well in advance on the conference date. If you’ve not yet reserved your place at the event, now is the time to do so - passes are selling out fast.

mTrends readers can get a 10% discount on a conference attendance pass (priced at GBP 1499). Go to the registration form and enter ‘MM24′ in the ‘partner code’ box on the registration form.

Hope to see you there!

This weekend and early next week I’m off to Sevilla for an exploratory workshop on Mobile 2.0, organised by the European Commission Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), for its project on mobile content evolution and its socio-economic impact.

The project is looking at user adoption and acceptance issues, the promotion of innovation in this domain, the new emerging mobile 2.0 applications, and the possible existence of bottlenecks with the aims to explore techno-economic models and their viability, to assess the position of Europe in this field and to identify EU possible policy options. The workshop will also serve to identify key areas for future EU research and innovation policies. Most European operators and handset manufacturers will participate, together with some application providers and experts. Looking forward to catch up again with Ajit Jaokar.

If you have any question or input related to the topic I can bring to the attention, leave me a comment or contact me on Twitter.

Monday April 28th is also the launch of the first Mobile Monday Andalucía and will take place in Sevilla and covers Mobile Innovative Services. The event will focus on new technologies such as digital signature or Near Field Communication (NFC). Mobile Monday Andalucia is organised by the Andalusian Regional Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprise.

I will moderate a panel including Alejandro Romero from Yahoo, Antonio Navas from Kimia, Angel Romero from AT4 wireless and Rafael Selma from TB-Solutions. I’m really excited to discover some more about the field work on new technologies trialed here in Spain recently on digital identity and Near Field Communication (NFC). Note the recent trial launch of Orange Spain to bring NFC mobile ticketing to public buses in Málaga.

Anyone who’ll be in the neighborhood and who’d like to get in touch with me, don’t hesitate to ping me.

Here are my Mobile 2.0 slides of the keynote I did last Friday in London at the Over The Air event, a great initiative by Daniel Appelquist and Ian Forrester. Over the Air was organised by Mobile Monday London, hosted by Imperial College and supported by the BBC.

Kudos to the whole team who made this happen, this was more than just a developers’ conference, more than just a workshop or a barcamp… It was a 48 hours of mobile and wireless development experiment bringing together some +400 developers and mobile industry experts with great sessions on various industry related topics… Lots of great people and ideas gathered during these 2 days. Check the Over The Air website to view the presentations from other keynotes and sessions.