Yes, it's coming to the end of the year which makes it a good time to reflect on what's been happening in the mobile world for the last 12 months and to have a think about what we might see next year - especially with Mobile World Congress coming up in just a couple of months. Our panel, representing different areas of the mobile industry, will discuss this year's achievements and failures, why they were successful or not and what they think will be the ones to watch in 2011. Panellists include George Nimeh and others to be announced shortly.
This session will form part of the UKTI's Technology World 2-day event and will be held in the afternoon of Wednesday 8th December at London Excel in Docklands – (yes, we’ve spotted it’s not on a Monday and it’s not in the evening and it’s not in Central London). By special arrangement, it is free to attend but you must pre-register. All Mobile Monday London attendees will be entitled to enter the exhibition area (but not the meetings or other conference sessions) at Technology World for free on that day only from 1.30pm. Discounted tickets are available to our members for the event if you wish to attend more sessions and benefit from the unique meetings system in place where you have the chance to have meetings with many foreign companies to do business with them. This is not your usual conference format.
And to register for just the Mobile Monday London session and admittance to the exhibition area only on Wednesday afternoon please go to http://momolo.org
Timings and agenda:
Wednesday 8th December
Please note: this is an afternoon event
2.45pm Doors open
3pm *prompt* start to the panel session
4pm Panel session closes. Networking for an hour.
5pm. Venue closes and we must vacate the building.
A round up of last week’s super event sponsored by our friends at DCKTN on key trends in mHealth from Mobile Monday London regular columnist, Lauren McGregor – over to you Lauren.
mHealth is been one of the things on my 'one to watch' list for quite some time and so when I heard that the next Mobile Monday London event was going to be on this subject, I was very excited. The healthcare industry is one that thrives off new technology, whether is is through innovations within the equipment used or the developments in the medicine prescribed – technology advancements are rife and there has always been a strong tradition in research and development. mHealth is a wide topic and means different things to different people, including the ways that mobile are designed to make the processes within a doctor-patient scenario run more smoothly and efficiently, both for the benefit of the doctor's schedule and the patients recovery. The kind of applications available include devices that allow the patient can spend more time at home though monitoring devices that share information with their doctor, and those that can be used directly by the doctor for reference/note-taking purposes. Many of the benefits of mHealth revolve around time-saving, faster recovery times, better monitoring systems and also, and less obviously, hygiene improvements are high on the list too.
Rather then me rambling on about what I know about this industry, I will pass you over to our panel of experts for this evening with experience from all corners of the globe. Including Mobile Monday Austria's founder, Mark A.M. Kramer, Grow'sBarry Flaherty was in from Qatar, Founder and CEO of Regpoint, Sophia Salenius had flown in from Sweden to join us, chaired by LinkedGov's founder, Hadley Beeman. Unfortunately, Robyn Glen from NHS Choices could not make it due to illness.
Sophia Salenius, who is also a registered nurse as well as a successful entrepreneur, kicked off the debate telling us about the clinical trials that Regpoint carried out with PDAs in the early 90s. The PDAs tracked and recorded symptoms and medical information, correcting the levels of medication that the patient required. The trials were carried out on patients with Parkinson's Disease and following the trials, those involved fed back that their quality of life which went from 'bad' to 'good' to 'never been better' in only three months – doctors also reported patients’ health improved. If you would like a copy of the white paper please contact Sophia directly. The positive impact to patients is clear, however as Sophia points out, there are a number of different players that need to be in sync – operators, doctors, patience, content providers, developers – with issues surrounding security and transition across a multitude of handsets on the market.
Hadley Beeman continued that there is a real need to connect the whole ecosystem together, through data collection, research, decision support, diagnostics and telemedicine. Hadley illustrated one of the biggest problems faced with an example of the NHS, where there is not just one department but several hundred that the developer will need to deal with – each with its own security infrastructure. mHealth is something that the NHS investing in though, most recently with iBleep, which uses tablets and PDAs to locate the nearest doctor with relevant skills and location within the hospital. Mark Kramer added that mHealth could be a great case study for the industry to help us to develop the standards needed for all mobile applications.
The issue of security and the inevitable privacy concerns were raised from our audience. There is a definite need for a regulatory environment and certainly no spam – the panel agreed that any data stored should be encrypted and not linked directly to a patients name/NHS number. But one huge question lies, who should/will fund these additional security systems and infrastructure needed to make mHealth work, perhaps the billion pound pharmaceutical industry?
As with much of the adoption of new mobile technologies, mHealth is picking up pace in lesser developed countries. One such region is India, which is seeing rapid advancement with mHealth services – is this a good way to change attitudes in EU and other regions? The US has also been an early adopter and it is common place to turn your mobile device into a medical tool. Also, things like social media – using Google to search your symptoms – is a popular way to diagnose symptoms and you can track these searches and see the spikes in those searching flu symptoms for example and then use that date to map and track regionally. That could be a very powerful tool. So we can see that consumers are already happy with using technology to support their own wellbeing.
Adoption of services is an issue, but what is the biggest barrier to full rollout? The panel all agreed that this is largely the clinicians – who have their routines and specific ways of doing things, and although many of the younger generation are keen to adopt new technologies, many are still stuck in their ways – it takes time and energy to get used to new systems. To get around this issue, a huge education plan needs to be implemented, when computers were introduced many years ago, there were the same barriers and yet, these are now widely used, and so it should be just a matter of time to get clinicians to move from computer to mobile – a device that all clinicians have anyway. When asked why they are not keen to adopt mHealth technologies, many clinicians commented that they had been turned off by cold calls from sales people and worried that patients would think they don't know what they are doing if seen reading off a mobile device rather than a more formal-looking computer screen. We as an industry need to show them the benefits of mHealth and counteract these worries.
The theme that ran through the whole of this event was the need for better inter-communication and one single set of standards to be used globally (which is a big ask). It is a theme that we see again and again in mobile, we need to get together and share ideas, standards and reap the benefits – this includes operators, content providers, developers and the consumer – in reality can this happen or is it just a crazy dream...?
Thanks for that Lauren.
And it wasn’t only Lauren who was paying attention… Simon Judge did a write up of the event and was as thorough as ever – Permanent Link to MoMo London on mHealth and he also wrote a post this week linking to some new mHealth research which could be of interest to folks interested in this topic - Permanent Link to mHealth Report. James from The Fonecast also covered the event in their weekly podcast and includes an interview with Sophia Salenius http://thefonecast.com/?item=475 and wrote about it too – http://thefonecast.com/Opinion/tabid/87/EntryId/3473/Whats-the-value-of-mHealth.aspx. You’ll find some more links to coverage – words, audio and video, and further resources, up on http://lanyrd.com/2010/momolo-november/coverage/ and if you took photos or wrote a blogpost about the event, please do let us know and add your link in the comments so we can include it. If you’re wondering who the lady was from the UK asking lots of questions and sharing some great insights, it was Sam Walmesley. You can find her blog here http://pharmadigital.wordpress.com/ where she talks about where digital meets pharma marketing.
It feels like it was ages ago, but it was in fact only a few weeks ago that we held one of our much loved MoMoLo Demo Nights – Autumn edition … a night of some of the best developments in mobile and it delivered! The app market is one of the most crowded and hard to get into in mobile and on the night we showcased some very interesting new-comers indeed. We had everything from security, to planning, to gaming … and as always some fantastic presenters.
Our sponsors for the evening were LUMU Invest who stepped in at the last minute to ensure that we were able to run the event. A very big thank you to Muriel Devillers for her support. LUMU Invest are part of the team behind EuropeMob and UKMob and so the evening began with a short introduction from Julien Fourgeaud from UKMob (or UK Mobile Association) to tell us all about it Julien introduced us to the mobile application landscape taking us on a journey through the many facets in developments across the consumer, governmental, corporate and hackers/developers ecosystem within the market. He stressed the need for this ecosystem to come together, as great ideas come from everywhere … from the student in their dorm room to the developer sat within a mobile operator. On this basis Julian and his colleagues decided to build an association to do just this, organising matchmaking, seminars and conferences to connect these very different people together.
Then we got straight into the demos …
Psonar. First to the start were the chaps behind Psonarhttp://www.psonar.com/, Martin Rigby (CEO) and Chris Moores – one of my favourite things about a new solution is that looks to resolve an issue that we have all experienced … that sad moment when we lose our mobile or have it stolen or it becomes damaged beyond repair, and (in some cases) it dawns on us that we have lost all the data on our phones. Psonar specifically addresses this issue of losing your music by creating a fully online and streamed music service with an additional social side too. The solution is accessed via the mobile phone web browser, using QuickTime, and includes features like playlists, artists, albums etc ... looking fairly similar to Apple iTunes interface. Touch gesture rearranges any of the tracks. What I liked about this solution is that being web based, there is no need to download anything from an app store. The obvious question of the legalities/rights of the music was raised and Psonar does not currently own a license from the publishers. However, Psonar offers music publishers an interesting new revenue stream via micro payments (partnered with Bango where they can build as a kind of 'eBay for music' - allowing users to sell their music. A very interesting proposition and one that we saw last year at Heroes of the Mobile Screen. It seems to have come on quite a bit since their pitch to the Teenage Heroes.
Roulette Cricket. Next up was Dave Tharp, from Roulette Cricket (they recently came second and won Euro 50k in this year’s Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition) who has created an ingenious application surrounding the game of cricket … The idea first came to Dave when he was at Lords and his group were deciding who was going to buy the next round of drinks. It is essentially a live games app played during a live game of cricket. Each match is segmented into 18 (hence Roulette) and displays interactive feeds of live cricket, where you can play for prizes and bet on matches .... the app is currently free to download and the play for prizes works out around £2 per month and the team take a small revenue from the (optional) betting. The game can be adapted to other sports – baseball, football, whatever. A lovely idea indeed and well executed. The rise in popularity of gaming is certainly going to work in this app’s favour. Currently available on iPhone. Other platforms coming soon.
Phil Woodward had a dream, a dream to connect the real world with online world and lo Hipsnip was born. This is a web based mobile app notepad, the key differentiator being that it is action orientated – for example the movie you want to see or the bottle of wine you want to remember to buy. You can enhance your notes with a social element, add geo tagging and even barcode scanning. The results are designed to be 'smart results' not static notes, for example if I was to make a note of something that I have seen that I wanted, like a new laptop, the note will be linked directly with say a review of it on CNET. You can view your notes in the form of ‘snips’ via a Twitter styled feed. As we are hearing more and more about tablet style devices like the iPad making waves in the business world, I am sure that the two would work well together. One to watch.
Toshl. Then next to take to the stage was the very charismatic, and I have to say one of Lauren’s favourite presenters of the evening, Andraz Logar, the CEO behind Toshl. The Slovenian based team, who had spent the weekend building stuff at Over The Air, has created the app to track spending and exposes your poor spending. Built for Android, Apple and Maemo based devices, you can add expenses and sync them all live via the cloud. The solution currently has an impressive 45,000 users, with 3000 expenses tracked every day. What makes this app stand out from the competition is that it does not attach to bank, so it can be used globally, including places where bank accounts are not the norm. Excitingly though the team is in negotiation with a UK bank, and the potential to white label its service makes it a potentially huge revenue generator from the team. Is this a rival to previous demo’ers, Ribot and their Little Spender service?
Travel Plan. Many of us have had to travel for work and it is not long before the novelty wears off and the need for a seamless trip becomes paramount. That is where Travel Plan comes into play, a name that you may well recognise as it is currently a successful desktop application that has been on the market for the last 12 years. Mark Melody demoed the mobile version (iPhone only for now) of the app, which is essentially an offline tracker for the frequent traveler. I like that it is offline as we do not always have WiFi available and the high cost of data roaming is an instant turn-off for us all. The application not only acts as a travel planner for you, but also allows you to check for fares and availability of flights offline and also works for hotels and car hire. You can send updates directly to email and even to your social network ... should you so wish.
Myappmarks. Self confessed newbie to the scene, Adrian Cuthbert, had one of the most interesting propositions on the night and one that certainly got the audience’s attention. His application, Myappmarks, is an intelligent way to bookmark the apps that you love and discover, via the cloud. Currently in beta and available on iPhone, the application searches your local area via your mobile and identifies say Foursquare and allows you to instantly check-in and/or download the app direct from the app store.
Milestone Planner.Social Optic'sBenjamin Ellis came to tell us about his Milestone planner (who were also shortlisted for the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition this year)- everyone needs a plan and plans all the time when shared. Everyone can update this shared plan from anywhere and it is previewed as a timeline including any key milestones ... for example, the next seven days. The solution includes full RSS and twitter integration, facilitating a discussion around the a plan. The team is looking into further device integration for e.g. Dell Streak. Another cool thing about this planner is that you can produce reports directly, this can be on a daily, weekly or any other basis. The app currently runs in a freemium model with paid for add-ons. One of the interesting things about this service is that it recognises that not all the people using your plan are linear thinkers and the way the app works means that it can accommodate that too.
Qootia.Tomaz Stolfa – Qootia - Tomaz began his demo with a video, which you can view on the website, and this describes his solution perfectly. Basically it is a real time game that the public can directly interact with via their mobile phone. The team first trialled the game during the World Cup and set up in 12 bars across 6 cities over a total of 45 matches. Users were encouraged to dial in to compete against other bars in a game of penalty shoot out. There were a number of innovative controls, but one that I thought was great, especially to get the crowd excited, was to scream down the phone to set the power of penalty shots. 95% of those that played did not opt out, which is phenomenal and has immediate implications for the gaming and advertising market. This is a lot of fun and had the audience playing very quickly to show how powerful this is as a concept. Based on voice technology, this isn’t about downloading an app or mobile web which means it’s ultimately accessible. Great to see old technology thought of in a new way.
Spodtronic. Mikko Linnamäki CEO - spodtronic.com - we all know about app store radio stations, in fact there are 480 apps for radios in the app stores currently. Mikko and his team decided to create one place for all these apps to live and generates income via advertising. This app would certainly be an attractive addition to the phone, giving you access to all the radio stations available via one single app. They have apps for most smartphone platforms and shared with us how important Nokia and Symbian were to them in terms of downloads and usage and showed a live waterfall infographic showing how many people were using their systems and on which platform. Nokia won hands down. IPhone obsessives – take note!
Next for the 'Over night hack-a-thon' winners from Over the Air ....
Robot love.Mobile Monday London regular, Adam Cohen Rose - won Best Hardware Hack and Best Use of Other Features. Adam has a thing for robots. He likes to build them and this year at Over The Air, he built a robot out of Lego and devised a way for it to follow him around using the iPhone 4's face recognition software. The robot has a light sensor that picks up square on the iPhone 4 when it identifies a face ... hilarious demo, with many of the audience trying to trick the robot into following their face and rather than Adam’s. It showed a very human side to technology and also was a glimpse into how we might be interacting with machines in the future.
Lobster. Audience Favourite and Most Cheeky App Award - well it had to go to the Lobster App, demoed by Tom Hannen - an iPhone app (not approved and/or submitted we might add as we don’t think TFL would like it) that simulates the oyster card beep (I guess the team call this the lobster app beep…) and as seen in the video they showed us (see below), fools the bus driver. Great fun and kudos to the team for the pre-planning that went into this so that they had the time to go and do the filming. Follow the team’s antics here @lobsterapp.
And last but not least, we had drama from Ewan Spence. He likes to go a little over the top at Over The Air each year, and this year was no exception. Ok, so we didn’t have Cyber Men or Daleks this year, but I think I liked the Drone much better anyway. It was an innovative use of using an iPhone or iPad as a remote control able assisted by Ewan’s great comic timing. Ewan's drone was controlled remotely by iPhone and iPad, it had an on board video camera, and was definitely a show stealer and well deserved the Best in Show Award. You can see them in action at Over The Air in the video below – it’s great fun and worth a peek.
So that’s another demo night over. A big thank you to LUMU Invest for sponsoring the event and for all the wonderful people who took the time to share with us what they’re up to. And a special thank you to the participants of the Over The Air overnight hackathon who suffered sleep deprivation in order to entertain and inform us.
I’m pleased to let you know that Bindi Karia has invited me, Helen Keegan, to speak at the next BizSparkCamp on 29 November. It’s a technical day focused on Windows Phone 7, (although my session won’t be the least bit technical – I’ll be talking more about trends and opportunities) and is being held at the Microsoft Customer Centre near Victoria station.
I’ve been playing around with the latest Windows Phone 7 – I have an LG Optimus 7 – and I rather like it. I like that the operating system doesn’t look like any other on the market, yet is still intuitive. It’s fast, responsive and the screen and audio quality are great. The camera is good too. And I never thought I’d be saying this about a Windows Phone as the track record until now has not been strong. It’s a contender so should be considered accordingly as part of a mobile strategy.
So here’s the blurb about both the phones and the event and maybe I’ll see some of you there:
Windows Phone 7 is a different kind of phone, designed to bring together what you care about most. Its smart design lets you do more in fewer steps. Its intuitive Hubs, for People, Music + Videos, Pictures, Games and Office, means we bring things together for you so you can do what you need to do more quickly and easily. With this new platform, Microsoft offers a fresh approach to phone software, distinguished by smart design and truly integrated experiences that bring to the surface the content people care about from the Web and applications. For the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile phone, exclusively on Windows Phone 7. “Microsoft has nailed it. Windows Phone 7 feels like an iPhone from the future” (Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo)
What: BizSparkCamp: A Technical Day focused on Windows Phone 7. It is free to attend.
When: November 29th 2010, 11:30am – 5:30pm, followed by networking reception. Light lunch will also be served.
Where: Microsoft Customer Centre, in the Microsoft offices, Cardinal Place, 100 Victoria Street, SW1E 5JL.
RSVP: To register, please go to http://bit.ly/bHxa36 and enter Invitation Code: FD8513
Microsoft BizSparkCamp for Windows Phone 7 is a technically focused day designed to offer assistance to entrepreneurs, in particular, the CTOs and developers/architects within Technology Startups.
Learn to build new applications on the Windows Phone 7 platform (via a series of technical briefings)
Potential Nomination for BizSpark One (an invitation only program) for high potential startups
Generate marketing buzz for your brand
Microsoft BizSpark is inviting registrations from Startups interested in Windows Phone development. Register now for your chance to learn the latest development techniques with Windows Phone and your chance to meet other startups who have already developed and successfully launched apps on the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.
So in case you missed it, to register, please go to http://bit.ly/bHxa36 and enter Invitation Code: FD8513
A European call for proposals for innovative mobile applications called Proxima Mobile has just been launched. This is an opportunity to access a grant subsidy of up to 45% of total project costs covering R&D and innovation work expenses.
In order to foster the development of pan-European mobile services, and especially those related to “digital cities”, the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research and the Secretary of State for the Development of Digital Economy are launching the Proxima Mobile European call for proposals. This call for proposals will be coordinated by the Delegation for Internet Uses, and it aims to help create mobile applications and services useful for European citizens as well as tourists visiting the European Union.
Projects submitted to the call for proposals should be related to transportation, arts, travel and sustainable development. They should be geared toward the creation of accessible and user friendly mobile applications, especially for least experienced users.
Eligible applicants will be companies, associations, public institutions or territorial communities with registered offices in the European Union. Applicants may submit proposals individually or as part of a consortium. This call for proposals also aims at fostering cooperation between European companies in order to promote the cultural, geographical and environmental endowments of Europe.
The winning proposals of applications and services will be granted subsidies for their implementation. They will also be featured on www.proximamobile.eu, the European portal of mobile services for citizens, which promotes European general interest services on mobile devices.
Get those thinking caps on and act now if you wish to apply as the deadline is midnight (Central European Time) 30 November.
Those key points again:
projects submitted to the call should be related to transportation, arts, travel and sustainable development .
project should be geared towards the creation of accessible and user friendly mobile applications, especially for least experienced users .
you may submit proposals individually or as part of a consortium
eligible applicants are companies, associations, public institutions or territorial communities with registered offices in the EU
while this call is sponsored by the French government, it is open to all SMEs within the EU.
All details and applications forms at: http://www.proximamobile.eu/cfp Check there for any interim deadlines that may apply.
Our friends at Kemp Little have tipped me off to an event they’re running this week looking at the investment appetite for companies involved in digital gaming.
Kemp Little invites executives from media companies, investors, entrepreneurs working in the digital publishing and games space and journalists to join them at Games Gone Wild! on 17 November, where Nicholas Lovell from Gamesbrief will be posing the question: All bark and no bite: are investors really interested in games?
The demise of Realtime Worlds may have spooked investors, but was enthusiasm for the games industry in Europe waning even before that? Many investors have looked at the games industry closely, but few have made substantial investments in 2010. The panel of luminaries on the night will discuss whether investors are still interested in games and if so, what are the areas that are still attracting investment? The panel of leading commentators and industry experts includes Ben Holmes from Index Ventures, Thor Gunnarsson from CCP Games, Alexis Bonte from eRepublik and Andy Moseby from Kemp Little.
The event is taking place on 17 November at Patch, a chic cocktail bar near St. Paul's, on the lower ground floor from 6.00pm (panel discussion from 7.00pm – 8.00pm). As always, Wi-Fi is available for those who want to tweet the latest gossip.
The event is organised by Kemp Little - the UK's leading law firm for technology, digital media and games companies (and Mobile Monday London’s legal advisors) (with thanks as always to Michael Acton Smith of Moshi Monsters).
RSVP Space is limited, so the event is listed as invite only, but if you register your interest via this link here (or by email to events@kemplittle.com) and tell them that Mobile Monday London sent you, Kemp little will try their best to squeeze you in.
Our next Mobile Monday London event on Monday 8th November is on the topic of mHealth. Now it’s not an area I know a lot about personally, save for my dentist sending me very useful reminders by SMS for my dreaded appointments, but from talking to a few people about it, I know that mHealth is big news. And our sponsor, DCKTN, certainly thinks so too.
So that’s what we’re going to cover. We’re taking a look at the latest trends in mHealth in the UK and the Middle East, including a look at innovation and what the key issues are that need addressing with mobile solutions. We’ll find out what some of the opportunities are for mobile companies, large and small, and how to tap into those and if it really is the next big thing or not.
Moderating the session is Hadley Beeman, Founder of LinkedGov and specialist advisor to health organisations. And then on the panel, we have Robyn Glen from NHS Choices, Mark Kramer from the University of Applied Sciences in Austria, Barry Flaherty who is International Business Development Director for Grow in Qatar, Sophia Salenius who is CEO and Founder of Regpoint. With such an international flavour to our panellists this time, and a wealth of experience in mobile health services across the globe, don't miss out on this event!
So that’s 8th November and the venue is the CBI at Centrepoint and doors will open as usual at 6pm for a 6.30pm start. The panel discussion will run for about an hour and 15 minutes and then there’ll be drinks and networking afterwards.
Our friends at Kemp Little has produced it’s annual Guide to UK Employment Law 2010-2011 which I thought might be of interest to our community. No, it’s not specifically mobile technology related, but since many of us around these parts are running businesses, large and small, this will hopefully serve as a practical guide to lead you through the latest in UK employment law and how it affects you. The aim of the guide is to provide practical, easy to use materials for HR professionals and people managers and is an interactive format (pdf). It covers everything you need to know from what needs to be in an employment contract to rights during employment and how to deal with business transfers and unions. And it’s all laid out in an easy to read and easy to digest manner.
Just a quick word on list etiquette for our email list when it comes to job and event postings and what's ok and what's not.
The rule of thumb is... if you're a start-up or SME doing direct recruitment, it's ok to post job requests from time to time and within reason - but please keep them short and to the point and link out to the full job spec/blogpost/whatever. If in doubt, ask us (contact@ mobilemonday.org.uk). Nine times out of ten, it will be just fine. Just occasionally, we might think it has overstepped the mark. What we don't want is for our email group to descend into a sales noticeboard for recruiters. There are other places where that's fine. And if we had the resources (time and people), we'd set up our own jobs mailing list which would *just* be a noticeboard for jobs but alas, we can't do everything we'd like to...
If you are a corporate type of company or a recruitment agency, then this is not the place to post job listings without checking with us first. We have advertising options available from time to time for recruiters. Please get in touch to discuss if that’s of interest.
Pretty much the same goes for event organisers and people promoting events - please check with us first before promoting an event on this list. Half the time it'll be ok, half the time, it might not fit - depends on what we have on our calendar and what else is going on on the list. Again, our email list isn't about publicising events other than Mobile Monday London related ones.
Hope that's clear. But if in doubt, just check with one of the organisers and we'll be happy to advise.
What we'd love to see more of on the list is actual discussion around key issues in the industry, follow-on discussions from topics, companies and ideas covered in recent events, questions and answers about advice and support in doing business in a particular sector or country, thoughts on working with network operators, handset manufacturers, media owners, shared experience in raising investment.... you get the idea. There are some great brains and a vast wealth of experience in this email group and it would be great to see more of that resource shared with everyone.
Looking forward to some good conversations.
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Keep in touch with Mobile Monday London
You can find us in all kinds of places: We have an active discussion group on Yahoo! to complement this blog. We're on Facebook and LinkedIn and we tweet quite a bit and use the hashtag #momolo. We also have a (work in progress) community site where you'll find out about our monthly events (which we blog about here as well).
Here at Mobile Monday London, we have been waiting with baited breath to find out how the finalists got on at Picnic 2010 today, and in particular, our UK finalist, Roulette Cricket. We are delighted to announce the winner of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, the biggest competition of its kind, aimed at identifying and developing the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Cardmobili, which describes itself as 'consumer loyalty going mobile and social' was awarded the title today at PICNIC festival in Amsterdam and will receive the €100,000 1st place prize fund.
Fending off competition from 159 other entrants, Cardmobili won the top prize for its intuitive application that allows consumers and retailers to share the latest coupons and reward vouchers entirely via mobile handsets. Users can also pass on special offers directly to friends from their social networks. Once the app is downloaded, consumers can register all the loyalty cards they carry around in their wallet to receive vouchers and redeem rewards without waiting for a statement or update at the checkout.
The 12-strong team, made up of some of the brightest young software developers in Portugal, is one of enthusiasm and persistence. Having launched Cardmobili in beta last year, the team has worked hard to take the number of retail partners from 200 to 1,500. Already successful in Portugal, North America and elsewhere in Europe, Cardmobili will invest the prize money in marketing to further awareness about the company, and encourage sign ups amongst consumers and retail partners.
Helena Leite, CEO, Cardmobili said, "It has been such a rewarding experience to be part of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition. We've met so many like-minded developers with interesting innovations to share. Being declared the overall winner is an absolute honour. We've worked hard throughout the past two years and will only continue to do so, reinvesting our prize money to make Cardmobili an even better offering for retailers and consumers."
Second place in the competition was awarded to Roulette Cricket, who received the runner-up prize fund of €50,000.
Roulette Cricket is an intuitive application that brings cricket to users from around the world. The first app in the market of its kind, the games can be played individually or as a group. There is at least one interactive game every day. A perfect form of entertainment during or outside of the cricket season, the game offers play throughout the year covering tournaments that include Champions League, Test Matches and The Ashes. The 5-strong Roulette Cricket team is made up of some of the strongest talent in gaming, having worked for companies including Virgin Atlantic on in-flight entertainment. Since launch, the team has secured a successful partnership with the Daily Telegraph, with usage numbers currently standing at 140,000 unique users.
David Tharp, managing director, Roulette Cricket said, "It has been a fantastic and exciting competition to be part of for the whole team. Winning this prize not only means great things for Roulette Cricket but will drive further development of the app. The prize fund will significantly help us to grow our offering and introduce other sports to the app which include football, golf, baseball and sailing."
The final judging panel was represented by Sanjeet Matharu - Vodafone Group representative, Om Malik - GigaOm blog founder, Russell Buckley - Vice President Global Alliances Admob (and a regular visitor and speaker at Mobile Monday London), Rudy de Waele - Mobile 2.0 Europe founder, Robin Wauters - Plugg organiser and TechCrunch blogger, Paul Jozefak - Vice Chairman Neuhaus Partners, and David Leftley - Head of Venture Capital at Vodafone Ventures.
Congratulations to the winners and all the entrants. If you are interested in finding out more about the competition then please click here.
For the third year in a row, we are delighted to be hosting the final of the Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network (http://www.dcktn.org.uk/) competition for places on the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) stand at Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona, February 2011.
The judges have selected 10 SMEs which entered the competition to go forward to the next stage at this event. These companies will be given three minutes to make a 'pitch' to a panel of judges. Each pitch will be given without the use of PowerPoint charts, but otherwise in whatever form the presenter thinks appropriate. At the end of each pitch there will be up to seven minutes for the judges to question the presenter.
After the pitches, a buffet supper will be provided with drinks to provide an opportunity for networking and, in particular, for the ten companies to say more about their products and solutions using A1 posters that they will be invited to produce and bring with them. These presentations will not form part of the judging process, but are to enable the ten companies to let a wider audience know more about their product or solution (and to give them some practice – whoever gets a place to exhibit will need to hone their elevator pitch). Once the judges have reached their decision, the winners will be announced. The evening will then continue to provide a further opportunity for networking.
The Digital Communications Knowledge Transfer Network organises these events to facilitate collaboration and the exchange of knowledge in the Digital Communications community. Keep up to date with the work of the Digital Communications KTN by becoming a member. Membership of the Digital Communications KTN is free, and attendees are very much encouraged to register as members at http://www.dcktn.org.uk/. It’s worth it – there’s all kinds of access to resources and information that SMEs will find useful.
Date: Monday, 18 October 2010
What: DCKTN final to win places at MWC2011 – 10 mobile SMEs pitch to win a place
Time: Doors open at 6pm for a prompt 6.30pm start. We will close at around 9.30pm.
Where: CBI at Centrepoint. Please use the entrance at street level. Nearest tube is Tottenham Court Road on the Central and Northern Lines.
RSVP: Please register and RSVP at http://momolo.org/. Registration is now open at http://momolo.org/ and will close at midday on Friday 15 October 2010. Please note, as this is a DCKTN event, registration and contact details will be passed on to DCKTN for their records and to enable DCKTN to contact attendees after the event.
OSIM is 5 this year and Mobile Monday London is pleased to be able to support this year’s conference on 19 and 20 October at Olympia Conference Centre in London. OSIM claims to be the largest event solely focussed on the evolving open mobile ecosystem.
After extensive market consultation, the OSIM team are delighted to bring you a renewed programme, with keynote visionaries speaking on:
Points of differentiation in the new open mobile market
New form factors - tablets, e-readers, netbooks, 'open source hardware'
Open source's effects on vertical markets: media, health, automotive
Impact of web services innovation on mobile
New role of design at source, cloud and SaaS
OSIM also welcomes a brand new advisory board, featuring leading figures from the mobile operator, software developer, multiple device and form factor, OS, web service, design, and media and content industries. OSIM 2010 will showcase over 80 expert speakers in the open source community, with confirmed speakers including Peter Semmelhack, Founder and CEO, Buglabs, Robin Spinks, Principal Manager, Digital Accessibility, RNIB (Royal National Institute of the Blind), Angel Gambino from Sonico, Orange France, Virgin Mobile USA, Turkcell, Google, Yahoo and many more from young innovative companies to the big guns.
This year, OSIM brings you more keynote 1:1 interviews, rapid fire rounds, mobile as the inspiration keynote roundtables and networking formats than ever before. The infamous OSIM pub quiz marks a return and WipJAM– the largest mobile developer event in open source - is back and again FREE to all independent developers, along with the two days conference. OSIM 2010 will bring together 400 attendees working in open software, mobile cloud and partnering strategy development from across product architect to CxO level executives.
There are FREE tickets available for developers and mobile network operators. Please contact Fiona Higgins directly if you wish to apply for one of those free tickets. And for the rest of the MoMoLo community, we have negotiated a 15% discount. Again, please contact Fiona Higgins directly to claim the discount.
5th Annual OSiM World 2010 Open Software in Mobile World 19-20 October 2010 Olympia Conference Centre, London
Vodafone today announces the four finalists of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, our competition to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. The four finalists represent companies working on field-worker remote reporting; mobile loyalty cards; mobile application lifecycle management and ‘2nd screen’ gaming. They are: Akvo Phone (Netherlands); Cardmobili, (Portugal); MALCOM, (Spain) and Roulette Cricket (UK).
About the four finalists:
UK (Roulette Cricket): Part of a new wave of mobile entertainment, so-called ‘2nd screen gaming’ gives fans a new way to engage with their favourite sport. Roulette Cricket is designed to be played whilst watching live sport, either at the ground, on TV or online.
Portugal (Cardmobili): A comprehensive collection of membership and loyalty cards is gathered through crowd-sourcing as well as comprehensive searches of loyalty programs and then sent to the customer’s mobile phone. The digitalisation of opt-in loyalty cards, coupons and vouchers gives customers convenient and easy access to relevant purchase offers.
Netherlands (Akvo Phone): A mobile application that allows live field-reporting for development aid project workers. Akvo Phone allows reports including pictures, text, phone identity, geographic location (GPS) and time stamp to be remotely submitted, freeing up time for field workers to get on with their jobs.
Spain (MALCOM): A mobile application lifecycle management system which is a revolution both for publishers and developers. The service – accessed through a simple web interface – takes the complexity, time and cost out of managing, updating and rolling out mobile applications, making it much more straightforward for application developers to manage their work.
Each of the finalists beat off serious competition to reach the final, displaying key attributes in the following judging criteria:
· Originality, creativity and innovation
· Technical and operational feasibility
· Economic and financial viability
· Value to end-users
· Management team quality
The four finalists will now be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC* Festival in Holland on 24 September 2010, where the overall winners of the €150,000 total prize fund will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts.
Ahead of the PICNIC presentations, members of the public are invited to cast their vote for the winner of Mobile Clicks 2010. At the live final, the overall result of the public vote will be counted alongside the votes of panel members to decide the winners. At the live final, the ranking from the public vote will carry equal weighting to the vote of one official panel member. Vote now by visiting http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote and help your favourite entry win Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010.
The panel members for the final in Amsterdam are: Om Malik – Founder, GigaOm, Russell Buckley - Vice President, Global Alliances Admob, Rudy de Waele – Founder, Mobile 2.0 Europe, Robin Wauters – Organizer, Plugg & TechCrunch blogger, Paul Jozefak – Managing Partner, Neuhaus Partners and David Leftley - Head of Venture Capital, Vodafone Ventures.
We wish all the finalists the best of luck and we’re especially flying the flag for our UK finalist, Roulette Cricket. Don’t forget to vote for your favourite – your votes really do count. http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote
The mobileSQUARED Roadshow: Europe is a 1-day event on 29 September in London covering the essential aspects of connecting with mobile consumers, relevant for brands, agencies, content providers, and mobile companies alike. The idea behind the event is to bring these key players together to collaborate outside of their usual silos, and facilitate fresh thinking on how to shape the market for best results. It’s about how to harness the one media device that connects to millions, and is always on and always in view.
The mobileSQUARED team take the results of exclusive in-depth market and consumer research, combined with a range of speakers who lead in their fields from media owners, agencies, brands and mobile companies and bring them together for the day to thrash out the key issues. Expect lively panel debates, breakout groups, keynotes, case studies, how to guides and more.
Mobile Monday London members can get a 25% discount on the full price of tickets. That brings the price down from £280 + VAT to £210 + VAT which is a good saving. To claim your discount, please contact jo@mobilesquared.co.uk who will be able to help you.
So the UK nominees going through to the 2nd round for Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 have been announced, with 20 mobile start-up companies selected from the UK, Spain, The Netherlands and Portugal vying for final prize money, a total of 150K Euros. We caught up with a few of the UK companies who have made the cut, to share in their excitement about being nominated.
The UK finalists include Little World Gifts, Milestone Planner, Movirtu, Roulette Cricket and Touchnote Postcards, who will learn on Monday 13 September which one of them has made it to the final round of the competition, and will attend PICNIC, where they’ll have their chance to pitch to win the cash prizes. We wanted to know a little more about the UK finalists, and to hear why they want to win and what they would do with the money, here’s what some of them had to say:
Katie Lips from Little World Gifts explained that they are delivering the world's most amazing 3D interactive virtual gifts on Facebook, iPhone & iPad. Little World Gifts is a dynamic UK based start-up that is recognised as having a game changing approach to virtual goods - namely that it harnesses mobile and web platforms together to deliver an engaging user experience that brands want to be part of.
“Our big idea is to transform virtual goods - to make them really exciting for users and for brands by harnessing the best mobile platforms. Winning would mean recognition that we're already doing cool stuff in this area; and it would help us to improve our platform and deliver mobile virtual goods for more partners,” she said.
And what about the money the winner gets? She said:
“We're serious about growing our business and we have the vision, the plan and the team to do just that. But we do need capital to help us grow to the next stage. We've already had seed investment from Vision and Media which has enabled us to build a first prototype, attract our first clients and prove the model. We made a small amount of seed funding go a long long way. We're very excited about our future plans and winning a prize in Vodafone Mobile Clicks would help us realise those goals sooner. “
Benjamin Ellis of Social Optic, the company behind Milestone Planner, describes the product as being an on-line collaborative planning application that acts as the project manager for mobile, distributed teams. It allows highly collaborative, real-time planning via a mobile or desktop web interface, so that project team members can check and update project milestones and tasks on the go. Stuck waiting for a plane? 5 minutes in between meetings? Team members can update the plans they are involved with, catch up with the latest changes in real-time, all from their mobile. Milestone Planner can also synchronise project dates to team members' calendars, track project changes, and automatically generate progress reports. It keeps everything on track and everyone up to date, and making life more pleasant and productive for mobile workers, wherever they are.
“Our idea is a simple one: Every business needs to work to a plan, even if that plan changes every day - and it often does in today's dynamic markets. Everyone one in the business needs to be working to the same version of the plan, with the ability to communicate changes and progress in real time. That's the problem we solve today with Milestone Planner,” he said. For the prize money? “We'd use it to accelerate our development, expand our charities support program, and speed the growth of Milestone Planner into the rest of Europe and beyond. Even more than that, the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition is the largest and most significant of it's kind and would bring Milestone Planner to the global stage and validate our success to date. We'd love to get through to the next round, to be inspired by the speakers and attendees at PICNIC, and compete alongside Europe's best mobile start ups.”
Raam Thakrar says that Touchnote Postcards is a startup that helps turn people's photos into real physical picture postcards. It's all about helping people share special moments – it's about sharing photos in a permanent and tangible way. They've got apps on most of the major platforms (Android, Symbian 3rd and 5th, iPhone and soon Windows Phone 7) and have a deal with Sony Ericsson that will see Touchnote on multiple handsets before the end of the year.
The company is excited to be getting recognition from Vodafone that they are actually onto something really interesting, and if they get the money?
“We're looking to extend and polish our offering - we have a lot of interesting ideas on how we can wow the customers and really show off the power of the handsets that we really want to implement!,” Raam said.
Dave Tharp said that RouletteCricket was born from a simple game of guessing where the next boundary will be scored in a game of cricket. And after playing the game for years they thought...there must be an app for that - right? Well when there wasn't they thought they’d build our own, with a generous helping of knowledge, passion and humour from our partners (and Mobile Monday London regulars) Future Platforms down in Brighton.
“Cricket is the first of a number of games the company has on our road-map build to serve up fun and engaging 2nd screen game-play to passionate fans, and while we think we've won already by being shortlisted, if we were lucky enough to win the big prize we would reinvest the money to launch more games into F1, Golf, Baseball & Football.” he said.
So that’s that then. Watch this space to see who gets through to the final.
Yes Demo Night is back at MoMoLondon! We'll update the agenda once we know who's going to demo their wares on the night but expect an eclectic mix of mobile applications, products and services. Each presenter will get 3 minutes to demo and then there'll be time for questions and feedback from the audience.
We hope to feature demos from some of the entrants of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition as well as some of the hacks from this year's Over The Air http://overtheair.org/ . We have space for a few more as well. Just fill in this form http://bit.ly/demorequest if you'd like to be considered for one of the slots.
This event is kindly sponsored by LUMU Invest.
The goal of LUMU Invest team is to help startups in pursuing their plans. Our focus is seed and early stage financing and advisory for startups that have global ambitions. http://www.lumuinvest.com/
We are also still on the lookout for another sponsor to support the event so that we don't go short of beers for the networking afterwards. If you're interested, then please get in touch with Alex or Helen - alex@ or helen@ mobilemonday.org.uk
Doors open at 6pm for a prompt 6.30pm start. The demos should be finished by about 8.15pm and then we'll have drinks and networking until 9.30pm.
And you'll find us at the CBI at Centrepoint. Nearest tube is Tottenham Court Road. Please use the entrance at street level.
Please RSVP at http://momolo.org/ if you'd like to attend this event. An RSVP on our Facebook event is not enough as we can't export the data to tally up numbers and create a registration list.
Yes Demo Night is back at MoMoLondon, kindly sponsored by our friends at LUMU Invest! We return to showing the best and whats hot in mobile in London right now. Expect an eclectic mix of mobile applications, products and services. We will use our old trusted formula where each presenter will get 3 minutes to demo and then there'll be time for questions and feedback from the audience. We are back to the usual venue of the CBI Conference Centre by Tottenham Court road tube station.
We will include some demos from the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition and the weekends Over The Air competitors! If you would also like to demo your product/service, then drop me an email at alex@mobilemonday.org.uk ... we will confirm the final list as soon as we can later this week.
The goal of LUMU Invest team is to help startups in pursuing their plans. Our focus is seed and early stage financing and advisory for startups that have global ambitions. www.lumuinvest.com
Well, it has been exciting this year. With over 50 entries for the UK this year, and the standard even better than last year (and last year was good), it was a tough gig to get to the final five from the UK. But somehow we did it.
The UK judges for this round included myself, Rafe Blandford from All About Symbian and a group of representatives from Vodafone’s developer marketing team. A special thank you goes to Mike Butcher and Elizabeth Varley from Techhub who looked after us so well this week for the final judging session. May I recommend the pizzas they order in for things like this. Ab-so-lute-ly delicious!
Anyway, I digress.
The jury selected the very best entries based on the 5 criteria mentioned below:
- Originality, creativity and innovation - Technical and operational ability - Economic and financial viability (i.e. the business case) - Use case and end-user value - The quality of the members of the (management) team (e.g. their experience, knowledge, skills, relationships)
Hurrah! Well done to everyone and we really do wish all our UK nominees the best of luck. I’m glad I don’t have to choose who goes through to the final at Picnic – it’s a really tough choice.
And for the other countries…. there’s some stiff competition here by the way, they are:
Many thanks to all participating startups for their time and effort to enter. It’s really exciting to see these companies and ideas unfold.
More details about this announcement can be seen here.
Oh, and if you’re interested to know who’s been judging all the entries, then here’s a list of the judges for you:
For Spain:
- Belen Aparicio - Marketing Specialist (Vodafone ES) - Carles Ferreiro - Co-founder MoMo Barcelona & Madrid - Albert Cuesta - Technology Columnist at CanalPDA
For the Netherlands:
- Jochem Heerkens - Head of Postpaid Terminals Marketing (Vodafone NL) - Marc Fonteijn - Chairman MoMo Amsterdam - Peter Robinett - Owner of Mobile DevCamp website/database
For Portugal:
- Nuno Inácio - Product Manager (Vodafone PT) - Vitor Domingos - Founder Mobile Monday Portugal - LuÃs Silva - CEO Wit Software
For the United Kingdom:
- Mike Eaton - Head of Content (Vodafone UK) - Helen Keegan - Co-organizer Mobile Monday London - Rafe Blandford - Blogger allaboutsymbian.com
Global jury members:
- Rudy de Waele - Founder Mobile 2.0 Europe - Yuri van Geest - Co-organizer Vodafone Mobile Clicks
Our friends at the UKTI have let me know that there is a trade mission coming up in November to Los Angeles and San Francisco that may be of interest to MoMoLo’ers.
Some of you may not be familiar with the trade mission concept but I think they’re one of our best kept secrets in the industry. The UKTI puts these trips together to help SMEs do real business abroad in a particular sector. In this case, the location is the West Coast of the USA and the sector is interactive media (which of course, includes mobile media). If you’re accepted on to the mission, you’ll get to meet key decision makers from leading entertainment and media companies at their US offices. Last year, this included visits to Facebook, Apple, Warner Bros Technical Operations, Sony Pictures Digital Networks, Lionsgate Digital, Evite.com, Smule, Current Media, as well as agencies like IDEO, Astor Studios and the Ant Farm. In addition to that, there were two networking receptions and a round table on doing business in Silicon Valley. And this year’s will be developed along similar lines.
I’m told that in attending a trade mission like this, you’ll have a chance to build your international profile and gain an understanding of the interactive media market in the US. And let’s face it, like it or loathe it, Silicon Valley is pretty important to us mobilists. And not only that, you’ll meet interesting people both in the US and also fellow UK companies travelling with you from complementary sectors. I’ve heard very good things about the recent trade missions to Boston, China and SXSWi in Austin and I’m reliably informed that they do represent value for money and the UKTI work very hard on your behalf to organise relevant meetings and introductions for those on the trip.
Major opportunities exist for UK companies who provide innovative digital media products, services or applications within the following sectors and disciplines:
• Design • Publishing • Gaming • Music • Video • Film • Social/mobile interactions • Digital Display • Advertising
The mission will run from 8 – 12 November 2010 in Los Angeles and San Francisco but you can stay longer if you wish. The companies don’t have to travel together.
This doesn’t come free, but it does come very reasonably priced. And depending on where you’re based in the UK, there may be additional help to co-fund your trip so it’s worth asking. The basic cost is £600 plus the cost of your flights and accommodation. BA currently has a deal offering 15% discount to Mission participants via the UKTI, but you may find better deals using Kayak or Skyscanner and I think there may be some deals going with Virgin at the moment. And if you have friends to stay with in LA and SFO, even better as that brings the price down even further for you. AirBnB might also be worth a look for the bootstrappers amongst you. It’ll be worth shopping around I expect.
To find out more about this opportunity, it’s worth taking a look at http://www.ukti.gov.uk/uktihome/event/116453.html where you can download an application form and also the flyer outlining what kind of companies are welcome to apply. And if you have more questions, then please contact Andrew Wilson on 0191 281 5777 or email him and he’ll be happy to help – he’s in charge of organising this particular mission.
Closing date to apply is 17 September so best get those application forms in. It doesn’t cost to apply in the first instance. The cost is only if you’re accepted on the programme.
I think this must be the busiest mobile year ever because no sooner do we have the Vodafone Mobile Click Competition and also the DCKTN / UKTI competition to win places to Mobile World Congress but we also have The EMMAs (for mobile marketing excellence - nominal £100 entry fee) and the Mobile Entertainment Awards for doing great stuff in mobile content (free to enter).
Since Mobile Entertainment Magazine is a friend of the MoMoLo family, we’re very happy to fill you in on the Mobile Entertainment Awards, and even better, they’re free to enter. And since I know a lot of you are involved in mobile content and mobile media, this could be a good one for you. But get your skates on, closing date for entries is 16 August which isn’t far away at all.
So what’s it all about then?
The ME Awards evening rewards companies doing outstanding things in the mobile content space. Once again, the venue will be the Royal Garden Hotel in London. The big night takes place on Thursday, November 18th. I went last year, and it was a great night.
You now have until Monday August 16th to enter. It's a free and very simple process. No complex terms and conditions. No need to be a start-up or a company of a specific size. As long as you’re in the mobile content world, then there’s probably a category for you. Just send a short pitch document (no more than 500 words), containing information about your successes and innovations – and stating the category you wish to enter – to ME-awards@intentmedia.co.uk.
Here's the full category list:
DEVELOPMENT & PUBLISHING Best Gambling Company Best Adult Company Best Games Company Best Location Company Best Social Media Company Best Mobile Book Company Best D2C Company
SERVICES Best Video Service Provider Best Music Service Provider Best Games Service Provider Best Transactions Provider Best App Developer Best Mobile Web Publishing Platform Best Advertising Network Best B2B Content Provider Best App Store
OPERATORS & HANDSETS Best Handset Company Best Developer Programme Best Operator
SPECIAL AWARD Outstanding Contribution to Mobile Content
FAQs
What’s the nominations process? The ME team decides on the shortlists, basing its decisions on nomination pitch documents and consultation with industry insiders.
When is the deadline for submissions? 16 August 2010.
What’s the judging process? The winners are decided by a judging panel consisting of around 400 execs from all sectors of the business.
So over to you lot to get entering. What do you have to lose?
On offer are free places to showcase your solution or product on the UKTI stand, located on the Avenida at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona from 14 - 17 February 2011. This is your chance to introduce your high technology product to the more than 60,000 key industry decision makers that are expected to attend.
How to enter: If you would like to take part in this competition please summarise in no more than 500 words:
the nature of your new solution or product,
its value proposition and benefit to the customer,
and why you believe your company should be awarded a place to showcase it at next year’s Mobile World Congress.
Summaries should be sent to info@dcktn.org.uk and arrive no later than 5:00pm on Friday, 3 September 2010.
A panel representing the Digital Communications KTN and UKTI will assess all submissions received by this date. Up to twenty short listed companies will then be given the opportunity to present their products at finals held at locations determined by the geographic spread of the short-listed entries – and one of these finals will be in October in London, organised by Mobile Monday London.
Previous winners include Movirtu, Palringo, CuteCircuit and Touchtype.
Registration for these events will be free, and will be open to all members of the Digital Communications KTN on a first come first served basis. They will provide an excellent opportunity for the short-listed companies to draw their products to the attention of a wider audience. A panel of judges will select companies from those presenting at the finals to each be the recipient of a free place to showcase its product on the UKTI Stand at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Keep up to date with the work of the Digital Communications KTN by becoming a member. Membership of the Digital Communications KTN is free, and participants are encouraged to register as members at http://www.dcktn.org.uk . If you have any questions or comments please email us at info@dcktn.org.uk.
And if you’re entering this competition, and you’re a start-up from the UK, Portugal or the Netherlands, less than three years old, then don’t forget to enter the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition too for a chance to win Euro 100,000 or Euro 50,000. More details about the competition here. Closing date 22 August 2010.
Breaking News from Nokia HQ to invite MoMoLo members to attend the developer launch event for the Nokia N8 next Tuesday morning at the rather lovely Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue. Yes, it’s all a bit short notice, as it often is with these things, but it looks really interesting whether you’re a seasoned developer or new to mobile. There are sessions geared around development, but I happen to know that Nokia is trying to make things easier for the less technical amongst us to join the apps party too and that’s where QT comes in. So if you’re interested in getting an app out there, but coding isn’t your strong suit, then you should consider coming along to this to find out more. I’m no coder, so that’s what I’ll be there to explore. Oh, and we also get to play with shiny new Nokia N8 handsets too.
So if you’d like to come – here are the details:
What is it: Nokia is hosting an exciting developer event for the N8 which will provide an introduction to QT and the Nokia N8 - complete with live developer workshops at all levels and an opportunity for some hands-on time with the device itself. It’s also a chance to network with your peers.
When is it: Tuesday 3rd August, 9am to 1pm
Where is it: The Century Club, 61 to 63 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 6LD – nearest tube is Piccadilly but Leicester Square is nearby as well.
So in a little bit more detail, what are we talking about here? Well the Nokia people have sent me this:
The N8 wow-factor
The much anticipated Nokia N8, our latest smartphone, intuitively connects to the people, places and services that matter most.With the Nokia N8, people can create exciting content, connect to their favourite social networks, and enjoy on-demand Web TV programs and Ovi Store apps. The Nokia N8 introduces a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash, HD-quality video recording, film editing software and Dolby surround sound. All in a beautiful, aluminium design which you can see here.
The Nokia N8 is Nokia’s first device to be integrated with Qt, a software development environment that simplifies the development and makes it possible to build applications once and deploy across Symbian and other software platforms. Nokia has also made the powerful and simple to use Nokia Qt SDK available, in its initial beta, to enable developers to start realizing the potential of Qt.
Why you should attend?
Learn first-hand from Nokia’s experts and peers in the developer community – meanwhile we’ll introduce you to all the latest tools and technologies and everything you need to take advantage of the enormous opportunity that is presented by the N8. And rest assured: There won’t be any PowerPoint presentations during these sessions. And of course we’ll teach you how to make best use of the Ovi Store so that you can make your content available to millions of consumers from more than 180 countries around the world.
Who should attend?
Whether you’re new to Nokia, or a seasoned coding pro…
Whether you’re a web designer or a hard-core gamer…
Whether you’re a student or working at a technology start-up…
Whether you’re a biz-dev professional or a serial entrepreneur…
I shall be there. And I expect there’ll be a few familiar faces there. So if you’re interested in finding more about the opportunities with Nokia QT and have a play with the lovely, new, shiny N8 device and you’re free on Tuesday morning, why not put your name down and come along.
Fending off competition from 159 other entrants, Cardmobili won the top prize for its intuitive application that allows consumers and retailers to share the latest coupons and reward vouchers entirely via mobile handsets. Users can also pass on special offers directly to friends from their social networks. Once the app is downloaded, consumers can register all the loyalty cards they carry around in their wallet to receive vouchers and redeem rewards without waiting for a statement or update at the checkout. 
OSIM
The 
