3GSM World Congress 2007

I am attending the 3GSM World Congress this year in Barcelona as part of the Mobile Monday crew and ofcourse ThoughtWorks. I had anticipated it to be a really big conference but as far as conferences go this is BIG! and when you consider the Mobile world - this is HUGE.

The statistics for the previous Congress in 2006 are completely crazy - if this doesn’t give you an idea of how big this thing really is take it from me - the venue is el massivo - at the La Fira near Plaza De E’Spanya. The congress, conference, exhibition and the entire gamut of action is taking place in 12 different locations within this massive conference facility which sits at the base of the Montjuic hills.

I signed up as part of the press which was a very straight forward and non-time consuming process since the show has been organized amazingly well. Things just work - the folks at 3GSM have done an awesome job - Thanks!

I am really looking forward to the Product Showcase Arena where MoTo, HP, Microsoft, Samsung, LG and a who’s who of the mobile world will be advertising their new products and services.

Tomorrow is going to be a very hectic day given the start of the conference and also the Mobile Monday Peer Awards which we are hosting in Barcelona. The winners have been decided by votes placed by various Mobile Monday Chapters from around the world. No company from Chicago made it to this years finalists list - hopefully next year. This event should be exciting and I feel personally involved in some small way and hope that it turns out the way Jari and Micah (global leads of the Mobile Monday movement) envisaged it.

The other sessions of interest to me and the ones I will be covering are:

13 Feb Morning Session:
Chief Executive Officer Strategies for Growth - Is convergence the ultimate model for the future?

Moderator: Paul Taylor, Personal Technology, Financial Times
Rudolf Gröger, Chief Executive Officer, O2, Germany
Ben Verwaayen, Chief Executive Officer, BT
Alan Harper, Group Strategy Director, Vodafone
Dr. Boris Nemsic, Chief Executive Officer, Telekom Austria Group and Mobilkom Austria
Michael O’Hara, GM, Microsoft Comms Sector, Microsoft
Kenneth Karlberg, President, Norway, Denmark & Baltic Countries, Telia Sonera
Olivier Baujard, Chief Technical Officer, Alcatel – Lucent

13 Feb Afternoon Keynote Session:
Creating Next Generation Business Models

Moderator: Michael Williams, Editor, Wall Street Journal Europe
Marco Boerries, Senior Vice President, Mobile, Yahoo!
Carl Henric Svanberg, Chief Executive Officer, Ericsson
Ki Tae Lee, President, Samsung Electronics Telecommunications Network Division


13 Feb Afternoon Session:
Technology Breakout Session - Development Environment
Moderator, Jaikishan Rajaraman, Director, Product & Service Development, GSM Association
Nigel Clifford, Chief Executive Officer, Symbian
Jim Balsillie, Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer, RIM
Suzan DelBene, Corporate Vice President, Mobile and Embedded Devices, Microsoft Corp

14 Feb Morning Keynote Session:
How mobile can be the next great information and entertainment channel

Moderator: Janice Roberts, Managing Director, Mayfield Fund
Paola Tonelli, Head of Centre, Group R&D, Vodafone Spain
Randy Kath, Chief Technology Officer, Intrinsyc Software International
Jean-Marc Julia, Vice President, Smart Card Business Unit, Spansion

14 Feb Afternoon Keynote Session:
Emerging Markets - The mobile industry’s greatest growth opportunity

Moderator: Kenneth Cukier, Technology Editor, Economist
Jon Fredrik Baksaas, President & Chief Executive Officer, Telenor
W. Roy Dunbar, President, Global Technology and Operations, Mastercard International
Dinesh Wadhawan, Chief Executive Officer, India Times
Roberton Oliverira de Lima, Chief Executive Officer, Vivo

14 Feb Afternoon Session:
Technology Breakout Session: Mobile Web 2.0

Moderator: Ajit Jaokar, Founder, Futuretext
Jon von Tetzchner, Chief Executive Officer, Opera Software
Alex Kummerman, Chief Executive Officer, Clicmobile
David Wood, Executive Vice President, Research, Symbian


15 Feb Morning Session:
Technology Breakout Session: Location-Based Services

Moderator: Ranjan Mishra, Director, Mercer Management Consulting
Guylain Roy-MacHabée, President and Chief Executive Officer, Rx Networks
Javier de Salas, Vice President, Global Locate
Ed Sewell, President, VirtualDNA

15 Feb Afternoon Session:
Chief Executive Officer Strategies for Growth - Can the Mobile Web Experience Be Anything But Second Best?

Dan Olschwang, Chief Executive Officer, JumpTap
Andy Walker, Marketing Director and Chief Executive Officer, m-spatial

Jim Holden, Director, Global Wireless Strategic Partnerships, Google
Trevor Shonfeld, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, RoundPoint
Ms. Jayanthi Rangarajan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Novarra
Daniele Ottier, Marketing Consumer Director, 3 Italia
Dr. John Puterbaugh, Ph.D, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Nellymoser
Andrew Bud, Executive Chairman, mBlox
Dr. Gaetano Liggieri,

Vice President for Industry Relations, Telecom Italia

powered by performancing firefox