Impressions & Summary of the MoMo Global Summit 2010 in Helsiniki & Tallinn
Posted on: October 3, 2010 – Filed under: Germany
This year I was the sole representative of MobileMonday Germany at the Global Summit and I really enjoyed it. Read on and you will see why 😉
On Monday afternoon MoMo Helsinki started off with a MobileMonday Peer Awards night. In 2 categories companies presented. Xrystalgenius with iChecki from Kenya won in the category “Bottom of the Pyramid” (several African companies and one company from Rio presented). Alex Nyika presented a crowd sourced schedule for (a chronically unreliable) public transportation system.
Ringbow presented by Efrat Barit (Co-Founder) won the Peer Awards 2010 in the Future Potential Category. The main idea behind Ringbow’s concept is a ring that allows you to interact with a mobile touchscreen device via bluetooth by pressing and swiping (e.g. changing colors in iPhones Brushes app). It could also be used for authentication. A powerful idea.
Other cool companies presented here: PowerKiss showed off an universal charging device similar to the Palm’s Touchstone: you plug in a keyring shaped adapter to your device and you place both on top of a charging unit. The power gets transferred through the keyring to the device. I also liked the Estonian mobile e-book firm Indilo which allows everybody to publish an ebook via their platform. People liked a lot the Norwegian child protecting service by Bipper.
During the evening I played with Yasmo Live, a mobile app for on-site networking during conferences.
The next day we headed towards Rovio, the company behind “Angry Birds”, which Peter Vesterbacka helped founding in 2003. Peter, his new title is Mighty Eagle, gave us a very enthusiastic presentation. Angry Birds which started out in December 2009 is now close to 10mn downloads aims at generating 100mn over different mobile platforms in the next 12 months. It is pre-installed on Nokia N8, a Palm and Android version are out in market and Windows Mobile is coming. Next to a great characters and game play, a background story and outstanding customer service Peter believes in merchandising and is also pushing in that direction. I love Peter’s presentation style: he has seen . And we all got an Angry Bird to take home 🙂
Nokia gave us a warm welcome presenting the N8 and other new devices and F-Secure explained out how the mobile will be the next target of hackers showing some of the worlds first mobile hacks, their intentions and results.
The afternoon gave us a set of brilliant presentation at the Aalto Venture Garage. It is among others the result of a merger of a business, a design and a computer science school.
Jeffrey Stern, Innovation Evangelist at Amdocs gave an insightful speech about innovation at Amdocs, on means how to promote it and on how the whole company changes around a new and powerful innovation paradigm.
Christian Lindholm, Partner and Director of Fjord presented us his thoughts about some implications of mobile technology in the future: never lost again, no more tourist traps (due to social recommendations nobody will check in any more in a place with bad service or food), never forgetting anything anymore due to mnemonic tools that record our life and last but the web being more and more about answers with WolframAlpa and the like.
Jessica Colaco, Manager of the iHub in Kenya and TED fellow brought in a very moving presentation the spirit of the Kenyan start-up hub iHub to us and is looking to connect the iHub to other similar facilities around the world.
There were more presentations but I took a tour of the campus and chatted about the future of Nokia with my new Indian and Pakistani friends. I kind of agreed to their ideas that Microsoft and Nokia will be moving closer, possibly even merging. In the short run Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 might be another OS option to Nokia.
After almost missing the boat to Tallinn with a buffet dinner and all you can drink the WIPJam on Water tried hard to bring my thoughts back to the mobile realities today and tomorrow.
In Tallinn we have a great night out, little sleep and more presentations in the morning. I loved the visit to the Ericsson base station factory in the afternoon. Even more so I loved the presentation of the e-government activities of Estonia at the ICT Demo Center presented by Indrek Vimberg – I believe Estonia is a true role model for Europe.
The City of Tallinn received us then in the old town hall with short welcoming speech and very nice chats next to the buffet. I stayed behind in Tallinn while the rest of the gang was going back to Helsinki. After lots of hugs and good byes I finally had some time to see the city. Sander, probably the youngest member of MoMo Estonia, showed me around the old town.
I had a stupendously great time. Thanks a lot to the organizers, the fellow MoMos and all the other people!
Some links for more reading:
Xrystalgenius’ iChecki – a crowd sourced public transportation schedule
http://www.xrystalgenius.com/icheki.html
Ringbow – a new
http://www.ringbow.com
PowerKiss Charging Solution
http://www.powerkiss.com/
Indilos Multimedia Publishing Suite (currently in private beta)
http://www.testmarket.eu/2010/08/publish-your-e-book-in-appstore-for-100-video/
http://www.indilo.com/
Bipper Child Protection
http://bipper.no/?bipper-en.html
Yasmo Live – Mobile On-Site Event Networking
http://www.yasmolive.com/
Aalto Veture Garage runs boot camps 4 times a year
http://aaltovg.com/
Kenya’s iHub
http://www.ihub.co.ke/blog/
Estonian ICT Demo Center of its e-Governmet Activities
http://www.demoestonia.eu/
Brochure with great examples for an e-society on this page
http://www.investinestonia.com/en/business-environment/e-estonia