MobileMonday launches in TelecomCity
Posted on: November 25, 2009 – Filed under: Global
By Shaun Thanki
Last night MoMo launched its 84th chapter in Karlskrona, Sweden. Karlskrona is a very small Swedish town but home to the world class telecom cluster TelecomCity – a regional and global “hot spot” within the IT and telecom industry.
It was here were Europolitan was founded, one of the first and subsequently largest mobile operators and an important contributor to the development of the Swedish mobile market. Today the TelecomCity network consists of a number of leading companies. Ericsson and Telenor, among others, as well as a variety of innovative product and service companies. In total the network consist of 40 companies including the Municipality of Karlskrona and Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH).
The kick-off event that was meant as a workshop started with Richard Linden, Managing Director of TelecomCity talking about how he sees the MoMo concept could evolve as an informal knowledge arena within the local industry that consist of more than 10.000 employees and 5000 ICT students. And as a connector between the academia and the industry – one of the ideas was that Ph.D students from BTH could present their thesis in an executive summary format. Among the other speakers was Niclas Melin, Marketing Director Revenue Management at Ericsson whom presented their new concept “Mobile Money” and how this could leverage social change in developing countries and Shaun Thanki, Founding Director of MoMo Scandinavia whom has over the last year been working on connecting the mobilist community in Scandinavia.
There was a good crowd that represented almost all aspects of the industry – from global players like CyberCom Group to master students and researchers from BTH.
One of the telecom students, Erkin Gunay originally from Turkey had previously attended the MoMo events in Istanbul. Said he was very happy seeing the MoMo concept launching in TelecomCity and had great hopes for this initiative. Also iclas Melin said that MoMo as a meeting point for individuals and not the companies could really give a new social knowledge arena that would increase the personal relations within the local ecosystem.
After the speakers had presented there were some very good discussion on how MoMo TelecomCity could develop and organizer Therese Hogblad was very happy with the feedback and that finally MoMo had launched after being on the agenda for some time!