Interview with Jari Tammisto at the Israel Mobile Summit
Posted on: June 14, 2012 – Filed under: Global
Jari Tammisto speaks at the Mobile Summit
Here’s a tip for any Israeli mobile entrepreneur seeking fame and fortune: Look east, not west; look south, not north. And learn some languages other than English.
That tip comes courtesy of Jari Tammisto, perhaps the world’s most knowledgeable expert on the mobile business. With two decades of experience, Tammisto played a key part in turning his native Finland into a major center of mobile phone development. In 2004 he became CEO of MobileMonday, which builds global communities to enhance the sharing of knowledge, contacts, and leadership in the mobile developer community worldwide.
Tammisto was in Israel this week for the Israel Mobile Summit 2012, which featured speakers from some of the world’s biggest mobile and communication companies, Israeli experts, and app developers. The Summit was sponsored by MobileMonday, and featured speakers from companies like Nokia, Paypal, Amdocs. AT&T, and others – along with a start-up competition that pitted eight of Israel’s most promising mobile apps against each other. It’s not just any contest; previous winners at Mobile Summit events have gone on to great things. For example, iOnRoad, last year’s winner, won a top design and engineering award at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
As director of an organization with chapters in more than 140 countries (the Israeli chapter of MoMo was established four years ago), Tammisto has seen it all, and on his first visit to Israel this week, he said he was very impressed by the passion and energy of Israeli entrepreneurs — but that he was most impressed by the willingness of Israeli entrepreneurs to take risks.
“They know about the risks of moving ahead with ideas and the potential for failure, and still they forge ahead,” Tammisto told The Times of Israel. “This willingness to take such risks is unique to Israel.”
With entrepreneurs here willing to take on new challenges and boldly go where few other mobile companies have ever gone before, Tammisto believes that Israeli start-ups would do well partnering with service providers, manufacturers, and app distributors in Asia, South America, and even Africa. See full article via The Times of Israel