Friday, February 15, 2008

Internationalisation Awards of the President of the Republic of Finland to Mobile Monday


Mrs Tarja Halonen, President of the Republic of Finland;
Mr Vesa Paananen, Founder of Mobile Monday; Mr Jari Tammisto, CEO Mobile Monday Oy


Tarja Halonen, President of the Republic of Finland, has presented the 2007 Internationalisation Awards to the Mobile Monday online community and to two Finnish companies Etteplan and Proventia Emission Control.

The award ceremony on the 14th February was the 40th in the history of the prize. The ceremony also marked the second time in the history of the Internationalisation Awards that a community has won the award. The objective of the Internationalisation Awards, which are coordinated by Finpro, is to help businesses to operate in an international environment and to boost their ability to develop and adopt new operating models.


“Finpro’s core mission is to inject the Finnish innovation environment with know-how and trends from the global marketplace. Another key goal is to promote the growth and internationalisation of Finnish businesses. The Internationalisation Award is our way to give recognition to enterprises that have already successfully demonstrated their ability to operate on the international market. These enterprises also act as points of reference and set a great example to others,” says Jorma Turunen, Managing Director of Finpro.
The 2007 awards ceremony doubles as a celebration of the 40-year history of the prize. The Export Award of the President of the Republic of Finland, which preceded the Internationalisation Award, was founded in 1967.


Mobile Monday efficiently reaches mobile professionals around the world.

“We plan to host just over 700 Mobile Monday events in 2008 in 70 different cities around the world, and we expect to see more than 90,000 participants. These figures make Mobile Monday the world’s leading event organiser in the mobile technology industry,” explains Jari Tammisto, CEO of Mobile Monday.

Mobile Monday is a public online community which aims to bring together developers, decision-makers, researchers and funding agencies from the mobile industry through monthly events, international conventions, the online community and newsletters. The objectives are, amongst other things, to promote innovation within the mobile industry, to encourage networking amongst different organisations and to communicate industry trends, research findings and future projections. The organisation behind Mobile Monday is a Finnish NPO called Mobile Monday Oy, which coordinates the global community with the help of more than 300 volunteers.

(Text Finpro, photo Tommi Tuomi)

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Buzzd to honors at Barcelona MobileMonday Awards

Buzzd from New York, a provider of local real-time search information for bars, clubs and restaurants on the mobile device, cleaned the table by winning jury, audience and community awards under the early stage category at the Mobile Monday Peer Awards in Barcelona.


In the Emerging Community category, Taptu a search and sharing engine from London won the award with Funambol, an open source email and messaging company, while local favorite Kimia, a rich media content provider, clinched the audience choice.

“Winning these awards amongst the best and brightest companies across the world exemplifies the demand for location-sensitive services like buzzd,” said Buzzd CEO and co-founder Nihal Mehta.

The 2008 Mobile Monday Peer Awards recognized 27 companies from 18 countries at its annual awards event held at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. "Mobile Monday’s ultra global and super local model has once again illuminated some of the world’s most innovative rising mobile companies", said Jari Tammisto, CEO of Mobile Monday Oy. "The Mobile Monday chapter nominees for the Barcelona Peer Awards demonstrated impressive vision. These fresh ideas are much needed in our industry and we are thrilled to showcase them in Mobile Monday community".

Mr. Pekka Ala-Pietila, former president at Nokia Corporation and currently chief executive officer of Blyk Corporation delivered the keynote address to over 500 delegates keen for mobile’s cutting edge offerings submitted by Early-Stage and Emerging Start-Up categories judged in a fast pitch format.

Three awards in each category: jury, audience, and community were judged by an expert jury including representatives from Telefónica R&D, the Mobile Marketing Assoc., Vodafone Group, Google, Nexit Ventures, eXtract, the Mobile Monday global chapter founders and audience SMS voting.

This year's winners at the Mobile Monday Peer Awards Barcelona will be invited to participate in the Mobile Monday Global Summit in conjunction with the World Congress on IT (WCIT) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 18-22, 2008.


(Timo Poropudas)