Anyone with intent to stay ahead in the telecom business were in Barcelona last week for the Mobile World Congress 2009 (MWC). HSDPA, LTE, femtocells and many other telecom technicalities soon to constitute the backbone of our everyday mobile use were presented and debated by 47.000 high-level business attendees.
But how to celebrate the achievements of an industry while dealing with the uncertain implications of a recession? This is a dilemma that many a congress or conference will no doubt face this year. Exhibitors launching their latest high-end phone must get a sense of creeping frustration, when market predictions show consumers will be saving on handsets this year. Speakers better be prepared for business model inquiries also.
Progress doesn’t come to those who wait however and while “business model” seems to be the number one concern-du-jour, “differentiation” and good old “innovation” are strong runners-up. Chin high, chest out and innovate your way over the economic hurdle is the word coming from several industry advisors.
In this light it actually makes perfect sense to attend conferences, getting noticed and share inspiration to rethink business opportunities. To meet customers and competitors face-to-face to assess the damage externally, as Cisco CEO, John Chambers, suggests. To ask peers: “How are you handling this?”
Judging from the last Mobile Monday get-together in Copenhagen, Danish start-ups are handling these dire times quite enthusiastically.
Here eight mobile business innovators were competing to persuade the audience into voting for them as The Copenhagen Favorite, i.e. the one to represent Denmark in the finals at MWC Barcelona and have the chance of winning a Mobile Peer Award.
Ingenuity ranged from mobile Marvel comics to mobile ID authentication (all eight slideshows are available from the Mobile Monday website), but the one start-up voted to compete in Barcelona beat all others on the gadget-o-meter. Mobintech presented us with the future of mobile TV viewing in the shape of Personal Display Glasses.
This is me trying the snazzy goggles right before I’m treated to a Vulcan death grip by the impatient guy next in line. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the viewing experience, but guys from Mobintech blamed the ad-hoc connection setup and said they’d have it all fixed in time for the MWC showdown. Let’s hope they did.
Either way it didn’t convince the Mobile Peer Awards jury, who decided to honor – among others – the Indian finalist, Babajob – Better Jobs for Everone, for their social change tool set to improve the efficiency of informal job markets.
Jury member MATTHAUS KRZYKOWSKI of Venturebeat writes about the decision:
Babajob.com won the [Mobile Monday] Community Award for early-stage startups. Babajob also won the Jury Award for very early-stage companies. Being part of that jury we felt comfortable to disclose that our choices came down to a Top 3 of Babajob, Mob4Hire and Aka-Aki (in that ranking order). Amongst the three we all agreed that Babajob’s business model has the highest upside. We evaluated the companies on the criterium “whether we would be investing our own money” in them.
Scandinavia didn’t go unrewarded though. Swedish product, Popcatcher, won the Jury Award for emerging companies for their mobile software that records music from radio programmes, but automatically skips all advertising and speak. Haven’t tried it, but can’t wait.
Congratulations to Popcatcher and everyone else keeping the innovative spirit high!
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More on MoMo: “Are you feeling mobile this monday?”