MobileMonday celebrated 10 years of networking success in Helsinki & Tallinn

Mobile community now covers all continents with 108 chapters

Helsinki, Finland September 30 – The global mobile entrepreneur community MobileMonday celebrated 10 years of collaboration and innovation in Helsinki and Tallinn this week.

The three-day summit gathered close to 500 mobile industry influencers and visionaries for a round of debates and judging competitions.

The 108 chapters cover 37 countries and all continents of the world, reflecting Mobile Monday’s maturity as a global community to network and share the most recent developments and innovations in mobile. Finland and Estonia’s own mobile giants like Nokia, Rovio and Skype were showcased, along with more than a dozen startups.

Mobile experts addressed Japan’s lead in the mobile race, creativity in East Africa using humble SMS services, the urgency of mobile services in Pakistan, and best practices for innovation in Amdocs and Microsoft.

The represented chapters included India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Japan, Israel, Palestine, Kenia, Uganda, Brazil, the United States, Russia, Germany, France and the UK. Three new MobileMonday chapters were officially founded on Monday 27th September, the opening day of the Summit: Karachi / Pakistan, Ahmedabad / India and Kiev / Ukraine.

"Ten years ago, we did not realise that MobileMonday would grow into a global platform.  Initially we started MobileMonday as an informal meet-up for the top mobile innovators in Helsinki. Now the network is global and is present on all continents. MobileMonday is all about combining resources, connecting the brightest minds and pushing the mobile industry further than ever before. By starting new chapters, the MobileMonday platform allows mobile professionals from all over the world to unite and conduct business in a professional as well as fun manner," explains Jari Tammisto, CEO of MobileMonday.

The three-day event included the finale of the highly anticipated MobileMonday Peer Awards 2010 and company visits. Inspiring workshops, keynotes and panels featured industry experts such as Jessica Colaco from Kenia’s iHub, Kei Shimada from Infinita Inc., Shankar Meembat from Nokia, Jeffrey Stern from Amdocs, Christian Lindholm from Fjord, Laura Merling from Alcatel-Lucent, Gabriella Poczo from Skype and Veiko Sepp from Ericsson.

During the company visits, Rovio announced that the Android Beta program of their mobile game Angry Birds recently hit 1 million downloads, with over 100,000 downloads per day on the Android platform.

The annual MobileMonday Peer Award best represents one of the key principles of the community, the peer recognition. Xrystalgenius from Kenya won the Peer Award 2010 in the Base of the Pyramid category with their iChecki schedule reminder Ringbow from Israel won the Peer Award in the Future Potential category with their ring-mouse for touch screen solution.

Global Summits have been held each year since 2005. The 2007 Global Summit was spread across Helsinki and St. Petersburg, and the Global Summit this year was held in Helsinki as well as Tallinn.

The ferry ride itself served as a perfect backdrop for workshops on Internet Payment Exchange, wireless intellectual property, and the future of MobileMonday. The seminar in Estonia concluded with an inspiring address on mobile government services by the CIO of Tallinn in the City Hall!

Priit Salumaa, MoMo Estonia founder added on the summit: "It is an honour to host a truly international event with such a global impact. It is a great opportunity for us to to show what we have achieved in Estonia with only a decade. Our whole ecosystem of successful ICT services has been mostly concealed from a global audience, but today we opened that like magic box of technological wonders."

The event showcased the global thought leadership of the MobileMonday community and also acknowledged Finland’s and Estonia's pioneering role in the mobile race. In the coming years, MobileMonday will be expanding its presence in Asia, Africa and Latin America and will roll out a range of events and research services.