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The next Mobile Monday Barcelona on May 5, 2008 in collaboration with Forum Nokia covers Mobile Development and will explore the mobile developer’s ecosystem. The session will include speakers from Forum Nokia, the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform, and will include presentations from Mobile Distillery (France) and IDEAN from Finland. If you’re interested in the next tips & tricks in mobile development, don’t miss this one!

Nokia’s global developer program, Forum Nokia connects developers to tools, technical information, support, and distribution channels they can use to build and market applications around the globe. From offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and Singapore, Forum Nokia provides technical and business development support to developers and operators to assist them in achieving their goal of successfully launching applications and services to consumers and enterprises. More information is available at www.forum.nokia.com.

Speakers:

Jarkko Tolvi, Business Development Manager, Forum Nokia EMEA (Finland)

Ricardo Varela, Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform (UK)

Vincent Berge, Co-Founder and General Manager, Mobile Distillery (France)
A specialist in mobile technologies, especially Java™ Micro Edition and BREW, Mobile Distillery was founded in 2005 to solve the platform and handset fragmentation issue that developers face when developing Mobile content & services. Its software solutions reduce porting cycles by up to 80%, generate cost savings, and accelerate time-to-market of Java mobile applications while ensuring their easy updates to new devices in European, North-American and Asian markets.

Mikko-Pekka Hanski, Director, Business Development, IDEAN (Finland)
Mikko-Pekka will talk about Mobile Platforms and User Interfaces. Each platform from S60 to Android has its own philosophy regarding user experience and how user interface is built. Mikko-Pekka Hanski from Idean will present how platforms help developers to create beautiful and ease-to-use user interfaces.

(NOTE: Faraz Syed from Device Anywhere had to cancel his participation this time)

Networking:
As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

All details at Mobile Monday Barcelona website.

If you hadn’t heard or read about it yet, the 2008 MobileMondy Peer Awards recognized 27 companies from 18 countries at its annual awards event held at Espacio Movistar facility during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Buzzd from New York, a provider of local real-time search information for bars, clubs and restaurants on the mobile device, cleaned the table by winning jury, audience and community awards under the early stage category.

In the Emerging Community category, Taptu a search and sharing engine from London won the award with jury award Funambol, an open source email and messaging company, while local favorite Kimia, a rich media content provider, clinched the audience choice.

The event had 2 great keynotes, one from Pekka Ala-Pietila, CEO of Blyk Corporation, and another from Luis Jorge Romero, Director of Standards and Innovation in Telefónica España. More than 700 participants attended the event during the afternoon and reception.

Kudos to all start-ups who participated in the very challenging competition in front of a great jury compiled of mobile industry savants.

You can download ALL Early-Stage and Emerging Start-Ups presentation slides at the MobileMonday Barcelona website here. If you are not registered, just enter your details to access the documents.

(NOTE: some of the embedded animation’s or video’s have been lost or could not been transferred for PDF document creation).

Some personal thoughts and possible improvements:

The overall quality of innovation and disruption this year was not as great and surprising as we have seen during last years’ event, though I believe that the winners and some other finalists have some promising technology indeed. We’ll definately here more about these companies in the near future.

The event this year was too long, 27 start-ups to present in one afternoon is way too much. In respect of the MobileMonday diversity and leaving an opportunity for start-ups coming from another corner of the world to present is great but managing that many needs pre-selections in order to preserve quality of the start-ups presenting and to be able to focus more on the quality of the presenters and presentations. Have you noticed that the best presenters with the best presentations won the awards?

I would love to hear some of your feedback and suggestions for improvements, leave a comment here.

I created a MobileMonday Peer Awards Barcelona Flickr Group with event pictures, anyone who has pictures of the event, feel free to join and post your pictures in the group to share with the community.

While the Mobile Sunday gathering passed the +250 registrants, and the Mobile Jam Session - a developers focused event, announcing its final program, speakers and topics (check also list of companies attending), the Mobile Monday Peer Awards Barcelona event is heading for another exceptional roll.

+700 attendants signed up already to attend the event. There are some 100 entries left. Don’t wait any longer to register and to be part of this unique networking event. The awards will be issued at 6:30pm (18H30) following our - not to be missed - MobileMonday networking cocktail including walking buffet - between 5pm and 6:30pm (17H-18H30)
The finalists presenting in the 2 categories (early stage and emerging start-ups) have been selected now, as well as the jury panel members for each category. Each finalist has 3 slides and 3 minutes to convince the jury of its great idea and business model. You can download the agenda in PDF here. Also a PDF-file with directions how to get to Espacio Movistar (only 10 minutes with metro line 3 from The Mobile World Congress at Plaça Espanya).

Also on the agenda two great keynotes: Luis Jorge Romero, Director of Standards and Innovation in Telefónica España, and Pekka Ala-Pietilä, CEO and Co-Founder, Blyk.

There will also be a premier view on barcelona.mobi mobile website.

Below the finalists presenting:

3:00-4:00pm - Category 1: Early-Stage Start-Ups

Amsterdam - Movels
Bangalore - Mobisy
Barcelona - skuair
Berlin - ViiF
Boston - SnapMyLife
Brussels - Mobixx
London - The 3G Dating Agency
New York - BuzzD
Paris - WebWag
Rome - Nanology
Shanghai - DuoGuo
Singapore - mBit.tv
St. Petersburg - 4Mobi.TV
Taipei - Toro

4:15-5:15pm - Category 2: Emerging Start-Ups

Chennai - Mobile-worx
Dublin - Sentry Wireless
Dusseldorf - Cellity
Helsinki - Fromdistance
Istanbul - Mobinex
London - Taptu
Madrid - Kimia
Milan - Waymedia
Mumbai - Ziva
Munich - Qiro
Oslo - Adactus
Silicon Valley - Funambol
Stockholm - Momail

See you on Monday!

MobileMonday has announced its Peer Award nominees. 25 chapters from around the world have chosen companies that have demonstrated exceptionally innovative mobile technologies, products, services and concepts.

This year’s nominees are:

Amsterdam - Movels
Bangalore - Mobisy
Barcelona - skuair
Berlin - ViiF
Boston - SnapMyLife
Brussels - Mobixx
Chennai - Mobile-worx
Dusseldorf - Cellity
Helsinki - Fromdistance
Istanbul - Mobinex
London - The 3G Dating Agency / Taptu
Madrid - Kimia
Milan - Waymedia
Mumbai - Ziva Technologies
Munich - hiClip
New York - BuzzD
Oslo - Adactus
Paris - WebWag
Rome - Nanology
Shanghai - DuoGuo
Silicon Valley - Funambol
Singapore - mBit.tv
St. Petersburg - 4Mobi.TV
Stockholm - Momail
Taipei - Toro

Additional information is available at
http://www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/peerawards/

Register here if you’d like to attend, don’t wait too long. Over 500 people registered already to attend the event!

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.

Image © SENSEable city lab MIT - wikicity rome

After some hectic weeks, trying to get blogging back to normal…

The next MobileMonday Barcelona event on December 3 covers Location-Based Services. Since Nokia introduced the Nseries N95 with built in GPS, Location-Based Services are becoming exciting again. Google Maps API and flickr’s geotagged photo function shows we’re heading to really interesting services build on the location of the user. Next Monday event has a really c00l line-up:

speakers include Fabien Girardin - who will present WikiCity a MIT affiliated project that features innovative ways to understand and communicate the dynamics of the city; Börkur Sigurbjörnsson - who will talk about two research prototypes from Yahoo! Research Berkeley: ZoneTag and TagMaps; Andres Ribera of Spanish startup Hipoqih, a Google Maps mashup that aims to create a mobile social network with GPS geolocation and Ilja Goossens, of yoMedia (Netherlands), who will talk about their video content delivery platform linked to outdoor advertising. Don’t hesitate to register and/or confirm your presence for this event, only 150 seats available.