We have fantastic speakers and unpanel members participating in Mobile Jam. Many of them are featured below:

Caroline Lewko, CEO, WIP - Mobile Jam Facilitor

Caroline has been in the wireless/ telecom industry since 1995, as a coder, funder, business developer and entrepreneur and is known as the ‘connector’. Caroline founded the Wireless Innovation Network of BC (WINBC) in 2001 and spearheaded the development and fundraising of Wavefront ac, a wireless commercialization centre in Vancouver. She started WIP to make the path easier for mobile developers, reduce cycle times and increase innovation in the mobile ecosystem, through events like Mobile Jam; Go to Market programs and tools like the WIPwiki.

Opinion on Topics: Looking forward to seeing everyone there - cause Developers Rock!

Asokan Thiyagarajan ,Technology Evangelist, Motorola Inc.

Asokan Thiyagarajan serves as a technology evangelist at the Ecosystem & Market Development team of Motorola. As an evangelist, he is responsible for recommending strategies to address market and technology trends as well as strategic alliances with key developers. He is a respected speaker at international conferences on technology. He authors technology and visionary articles for leading magazines around the world. Asokan has over 19 years of international experience in high technology sectors, developing software and communication systems. Asokan has skills blended in technology, business, engineering and management, and is very effective in Technology Management. Prior to Motorola, Asokan held a variety of senior development, operations and strategic management positions at companies such as Nokia, Ericsson and Compaq (HP). He also has entrepreneurial experience, having co-founded a technology company.Asokan holds a Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, from Madurai University, India.
Opinion on the Topic: The mobile phone has penetrated to over 50% of the world’s population and growing. More people are starting to access the Internet on their phones than the regular PCs – this will set a revolution in the applications and services market. One of the most important attribute of the phone is the “ME/MY” data like location, address book etc.,. Providing access to the device attributes is key to more innovative applications/services which would enable the next generation user experience.

Raj Singh, VP Business Development, Skyfire

Raj Singh is a mobile industry veteran having worked in all aspects of mobile over the past 9 years. Currently, Raj is Vice President of Business Development for Skyfire, a mobile browser that supports the full web including Flash 8,9, Javascript and Quicktime. Most recently, Raj was the consulting Director of Mobile for Dell assisting them with their global SMS and WAP strategy. Prior to Dell, Raj co-founded Veeker, NBC’s mobile video citizen journalism service and ToneThis, CNET’s top ringtone creation product.Raj has also worked in product management and strategy roles for Kodak Mobile, Cellmania, MobiTV, PlayPhone, Tellme, Hungama Mobile and Antenna Software. Raj’s personal projects include Moblexa, a mobile toolbar, PocketTella, a mobile file-sharing service and Pubwalk, an LBS bar-hopping service. Raj is also a mobile advisor to a number of companies including Guba, ChuckD Mobile, Scalado, Movoxx, DeviantArt, Oomble, Klicksports, Muse, BuzzD and several VCs within the valley.Raj is a regular mobile writer and speaker including blogging for GotoMobile and previously blogging for O’reilly Emerging Telephony. Raj has also made contributions to a number of mobile user and expert groups including the JCP, MMA and the Bluetooth SIG. For more information, please see http://www.rajsingh.com.

Stephen McDonnell, Global Alliance Manager, Strategic Platforms & Internet Technologies, Motorola

Stephen McDonnell brings more than a decade of industry experience to his role as Director, Internet Technologies Market Development for Motorola’s Mobile Devices business. In his current role, he works closely with Motorola’s partners to integrate mobile internet products and services into Motorola’s portfolio. His intimate working relationship and involvement with Motorola’s product teams provides McDonnell first-hand knowledge of the capabilities of software and web platforms, enabling the delivery of compelling Mobile Web experiences.

Opinion on Topic: Mobile is the most personal, immediate and convenient way to access the web

 

 

Mikael Nerde, Director, Head of Application Acquisitions & Content Planning, Sony Ericsson
Mikael Nerde is Director and Head of Application Acquisitions & Content Planning for Sony Ericsson. He has been with Sony Ericsson since its inception in October 2001. Mikael is one of the driving forces behind designing and executing the company’s overall application and content strategy. Prior to this, Mikael held the position as Head of Sony Ericsson’s Developer World program, responsible for designing a program that offers a rich portfolio of resources to assist software developers, content creators and aggregators, as well as enterprises worldwide. Under his tenure, Sony Ericsson has been recognized for its industry leadership and expertise in Java ME, mobile 3D game development and UIQ productivity applications. Today, Sony Ericsson Developer World is the top-ranked online developer resource and global developer support community. Mikael speaks regularly at mobile content and telecommunications industry events. Speaker participations include presentations at the 2003, 2004 and 2005 Game Developers Conferences, JavaPolis 2005, CommunicAsia and Symbian Smartphone Show 2005.

 

Paul Poutanen, President, Mob4hire
Paul Poutanen is a serial entrepreneur who has been in the hi tech and mobile space for about 15 years. He is a professional engineer and is an accomplished marketer and idea generator.Mob4hire is crowdsourced Mobile application testing. We recruit testers from around the world to test applications for mobile developers. At this point Mob4hire has nearly 1100 handsets registered in 38 countries and almost 100 carriers. The testing can be alpha marketing feedback to functional testing to whatever the developer requires.

Opinion on Topic: Testing mobile applications can be a hairpulling exercise. The entire mobile space is fragmented and it is difficult to test properly. There are four major problems in the mobile space in regards to testing. 1. Getting handsets 2. paying for subscriptions can be expensive 3. Testing in other countries requires costly travel 4. using your developers to test is not a good idea.

 

Candy Bernhardt, User Experience Architect, Nokia

Candy worked at Travelocity.com for over 5 years as a Web Designer and Information Architect. Won ebusiness awards for design and innovation. Went on to startups RadioTime.com and Handango.com where she worked on design and structure of web services for digital home theater, user accounts, desktop software, desktop web, desktop Flash, mobile commerce, mobile web, mobile flash and mobile applications for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Symbian, and Palm for both D2C and B2B platforms. Now at Nokia advising businesses about optimization of mobile features, web, and applications for simplicity.

About the session - What makes a great digital Experience? How do you get it, maintain it, and update it without going crazy? What can be learned from iPhone? When should you build a mobile website versus a mobile application? What do consumers really expect and is making something “easy to use” really profitable and measurable? Are there shortcuts – like web services, SDKs, patterns, open source groups and local meetups – that can make this all easier to learn and keep up with? We’ll throw around lots of realistic answers to these, talk about best practices in mobile, and discuss how to break down big problems into more simple use cases to solve. Be ready to jot down some great resources for online and local collaboration as well.

About timing - This will be an in-depth discussion which will be led by the collective experience and questions posed in the group. Use cases and Best Practices mean different things to different people and that is okay. They all have implications for Business, Technology, and User. For Developers with an agile point of view, these topics will not be new, but it should be helpful to probe some thoughts around what is most important to users vs developers and the impact on developing with that mindset.

Here are examples to throw out: How easy is it for most phones to allow users to text a number from their phone book while on a call? How long does it take to type in a long URL and get a response back (group demo/race)? How many steps does it take to download an app to your phone? What style of communication is your error messaging in? (would someone make a cult t-shirt out of it like twitter?) What are Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, handset manufacturers, mobile service providers and others doing to make mobile development easier to develop fast and FUN apps? (will capture resources for posting on the website) I will have plenty of stuff to contribute, but will also ensure the group has adequate time to share as well.

Ilja Laurs, CEO, GetJar

Ilja Laurs is Founder & CEO of GetJar, the world’s most popular mobile application distribution and developer community, with over 200,000 registered developer and beta-tester accounts. It has visitors to the site coming from 135 countries worldwide and crossed the 200 million download barrier in March this year. The company also closed a Series. A investment from Silicon Valley and London-based Accel Partners. The company is based in both Lithuania and the UK. 1976 Lithuania born, when in secondary school at a time when the country was part of the Soviet Union, Laurs enrolled in an American student exchange programme, which found him a place in a school in Ohio State for a year. He came back to Lithuania to join Vilnius University. Interestingly, he says he decided to do Economics as ‘technology was not considered cool’ at the time, financing his education by teaching English to school students. In the last year of his Master’s degree, he set up Midas Baltics Ltd, a Lithuanian based mobile R&D subsidiary of Midas Interactive Ltd., a UK based games publisher. He headed the
development of Midas’ line of mobile products on all mobile platforms — WAP, SMS, J2ME, Palm, Pocket PC, etc. From 2000 to 2005, Midas developed over 200 games. He continues to stay involved in the company.
Topic: Business Models for Free Mobile Applications Free mobile applications drive massive user adoption. Ilja will discuss case studies from popular developers like eBuddy, Nimbuzz, IG33, Google Maps, Opera Mini. He will review how they became successful. In-Application Advertising is a way to monetize free mobile applications. Ilja will discuss case studies in this emerging method for profiting from mobile application development.

Sean O’Sullivan, CTO, Dial2Do

As the CTO of Dial2Do, Sean drives the company’s technical strategy and vision. Before co-founding Dial2Do with Ivan Mac Donald, ceo, he co-founded Rococo Software, a world leader in Java/Bluetooth technology, whose software now ships on over 100M mobile phones. From a technical perspective, his interests are distributed systems and the space where the web meets the plain old telephony system. He also co-founded Twitterfone with Ivan Mac Donald, Pat Phelan, David Marcus and Florian Seroussi.

Vincent Berge, Co-Founder and General Manager of Mobile Distillery

20 years of international experience in High Tech (Internet, 3D, Video, Mobile), in various Marketing and Business Dev. positions, within Games, Film, Broadcast and Telecom market segments. Prior to founding Mobile Distillery in 2005 to solve the growing issues of mobile handset fragmentation that developers face when producing mobile content and services, Berge served Discreet/Autodesk Europe, Middle East & Africa for 7 years as European Marketing Director. Prior to Discreet/Autodesk, he spent 7 years with IBM as European Segment Manager in multiple High Tech segment including European eBusiness, 3D and VR business. Berge also worked 2 years at Scientific Software as project manager in Australia.

 

Tim Haysom, Chief Marketing Officer, OMTP

Tim Haysom is the CMO of OMTP, having moved from Orange in 2007, where he served as Industry Relations Manager. Tim has spent over 16 years in the mobile telecoms industry, working first on the standardization of the GSM system, through the launch of the Orange network and moving through innovation and strategy roles. Tim has extensive knowledge in the areas of technology evaluation, business case development, due diligence and the overall environment of the global mobile telecoms, media and internet industry. He participates as a speaker at industry conferences and is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology. Tim holds a B.Eng. degree in Electronics from the University of Southampton.

Jens Greve, Senior Manager, Head of Sony Ericsson Developer World, Sony Ericsson

Jens Greve is Senior Manager and Head of Sony Ericsson Developer World for Sony Ericsson. Jens has been with Sony Ericsson since the start of the joint venture in 2001. In his role as Head of Sony Ericsson Developer World, Jens leads a global support program and web portal for wireless application developers and overseas rolling out the program into new regions such as China and India. He is responsible for all technical support services provided to developers and his influence can be seen in the widely used developer resources available through the Sony Ericsson Developer World website – which today, is the top ranked online developer resource and global developer support community.Jens has also worked as Partner Manager for the company’s top game development partners and had global responsibility for managing the content acquisition from high profile thirdparty application developers for Sony Ericsson’s GSM/UMTS phones. Here his focus was to spark the development of high value business and productivity applications for Sony Ericsson’s Java ME and UIQbased phones.His expertise in all areas related to applications and content development has made him a leading driver of the industry’s smartphone and gaming markets and a wellrespected speaker and moderator at various industry events, including the Game Developers Conference (GDC), Wireless Developer Forum and UIQ Fast Track events.

Prior to Sony Ericsson, Jens held various software development, support and management roles with companies such as Ericsson and IBM and has 15 years of experience from the IT and Telecom industries. Jens holds a B.Sc. in Engineering from The Technical University of Denmark.

 

Winston Choe, CEO, Innoscape LLCWinston Choe is a mobile industry veteran with 10 years of experience in services, middleware, handsets.Currently, Winston is heading up Innoscape, a Venture BD firm which works with startups on their market-entry; including funding, M&A, market-strategy, sales-agency, product-distribution.Winston started two ventures in mobile-solutions and networked-multimedia, which he took from concept to commercialization through establishment of global sales and operations.Previously, as Senior Director of HP’s Handheld Business Development, he was responsible for all aspects of worldwide business-development, including developing business through mobile-operators, strategic-partners, and new market-development. He was also Director of Business Development in Nokia’s Enterprise Solutions Division and Sun Microsystem’s Consumer Mobile Systems Group, where he spearheaded the entry of Wireless Java and Mobile Devices into new market-segments through mobile-operators and enterprises.Winston also managed the systems-integration business at Digital Equipment, where he led the growth of the business from networking to higher-value IT infrastructure and services across a broad range of industries.

 

Michael Mace, Principal, Rubicon Consulting

Michael is a product planning and marketing executive in Silicon Valley and a principal at Rubicon Consulting. In the past, he was Chief Competitive Office and VP of Production Planning at Palm, VP of Strategic Marketing at PalmSource, Director of Mac Platform Marketing At Apple, and a lot of other roles. As you might expect for somebody who’s been in the tech industry for a while, he has a lot of thoughts about what’s going on. He runs a weblog called Mobile Opportunity, in which he comments on the mobile market and other subjects related to high tech. Currently, he’s writing a book on business strategy, called Stop Flying Blind. It has a weblog associated with it, where you can read and comment on sections of the book.

Venetia Espinoza, Director, Mobile Applications and Partner Programs, T-Mobile USA, Inc. Venetia Espinoza leads the Mobile Applications and Partner Program at T-Mobile USA. Espinoza represents the strategy behind the mobile application developer ecosystem that will create a successful environment for mobile application developers. She is currently pioneering a unique, open approach to help foster the growth of compelling content and services for T-Mobile customers. Espinoza manages T-Mobile’s Direct-to-Consumer business as well as T-Mobile’s third-party applications throughout their lifecycles, including application selection, enablement, go-to-market and retention. Espinoza has more than 10 years of experience in the wireless industry, focusing on business development and product management in wireless data and wireless internet applications. She has served as senior director of business development for Nextel Wireless Internet Services and started her career with GTE International, helping launch wireless services in Venezuela.

 

Bill Perry, Evangelist for Mobile and Devices, Adobe

Bill Perry is an evangelist for mobile and devices at Adobe based in San Francisco and focuses on the Americas, APAC and Japan regions. Bill has been involved in the mobile space for over 8 years and works with stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem to help improve consumer experiences on mobile devices. Currently he’s working with media companies and OEMs on creating consistent and engaging experiences across digital screens.

Harald Neidhardt, CMO and Co-founder, Smatto Inc.

In his current position as CMO and Co-founder at Smaato Inc. Harald Neidhardt was instrumental in conceiving the mobile advertising platform SOMA™. Harald is in charge of international business development, product management and marketing at Smaato, the pioneering provider of mobile advertising platform services based in San Mateo, California.

Harald is also the Vice-Chair of the dotMobi Mobile Advertising taskforce which recently published the white paper “Mobile advertising in the .mobi world” – where he was a co-editor.

Before Smaato Harald was founder and CEO of Cardmine, Inc. (New York). He developed the business concept for the “Internet Paper Postcard™” – a viral Marketing concept aimed at lowering customer acquisition costs.

Labeled a “pioneer in virtual worlds” by Forbes magazine, Harald Neidhardt has successfully managed interactive agencies in Europe and the U.S. since 1993. Before his position at Cardmine, Mr. Neidhardt served as CEO of Pixelpark USA, the North American arm of Bertelsmann’s multimedia subsidiary and one of Europe’s largest Internet solution providers.

While at Pixelpark, Mr. Neidhardt developed the Museum of Modern Art’s first online store. He also produced sites for BMG, Unilever, HUGO.com - an award winning Proctor & Gamble fragrance site.

Mr. Neidhardt holds a degree in marketing from the Communications Academy in Hamburg, Germany. He has authored a book on computer art, and is a frequent speaker on mobile and new media at conferences across the globe, incl. Visiongain on Mobile Advertising (London), Mobile Web USA (Informa/SFO), AlwaysOn (New York), and DEMO (Innovate Europe, Saragossa – Spain).

 

Natalie Jo, SVP, Marketing and Customer Experience, CITI Group

As Senior Vice President of Marketing and Customer Experience, Natalie leads marketing and product development for MMV, where she brings to bear strategic marketing expertise in both financial services and technology.

Natalie’s experience in marketing financial services began at JP Morgan Chase and was augmented at Visa and WaMu. Earlier in her career, she focused on CRM at companies such as BlueStar Solutions, ONE Inc., and Digital Impact. She also has experience with technologies such as GPS, biometrics, and 3D graphics chip sets from her time in the New Business Development Group at Mitsubishi Electronics America.

Natalie has a BS in Business Administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and has completed a Professional Development Program at Stanford University.

Leila Modarres, Director of Marketing, DeviceAnywhere

Leila comes to DeviceAnywhere™ (formerly Mobile Complete) with extensive marketing, communications and entrepreneurial experience. She leads the marketing and communications team and is responsible for developing and articulating the value of DeviceAnywhere’s solutions, as well as demand generation and market visibility activities worldwide.

Prior to DeviceAnywhere, Leila held management roles at several high growth technology companies – from startups to multinational corporations. Most recently Leila was Senior Manager of Strategic Partner Marketing at Virtual Iron a provider of server virtualization solutions, where she focused on establishing revenue generating partner marketing programs with strategic partners including Intel, IBM, HP, AMD and others. Prior to Virtual Iron, Leila was Manager of Marketing at PanGo, an RFID technology startup acquired by InnerWireless. Leila spent six years in the public relations arena at Porter Novelli where she supported various clients including EMC, Agilent Technologies, AMD, Nuance Communications and others. Leila began her career as an editorial assistant at the Harvard Business Review. She holds a BS in Communications from Boston University.

Marc Faucher, Blackberry Partners Fund and JLA Ventures

Marc joined Blackberry Partners Fund and JLA Ventures in August 2008 and brings to the team extensive experience in the communications and venture investing industries.

Prior to joining the fund, Marc spent six years with Summerhill Venture Partners (formerly BCE Capital) investing in communications/technology centric companies throughout North America. He also worked at Bell Mobility driving their strategic equity investment efforts on behalf of the mobile carrier. Prior to Bell, Marc was a senior consultant with the McKenna Group, a strategic consulting firm focused on companies operating within emerging technology markets. During his tenure, Marc advised early stage ventures on their go-to-market strategies.

Marc began his professional career with Ericsson Communications working as a product manager for wireless networks. With Ericsson, Marc played a key role in deploying the first TDMA-based fully integrated dual-band wireless network in the world for Rogers AT&T.

Marc received a BASc in Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.

Peter Baldwin, Mobile Enabling Technology Consultant

Peter has a distinguished track record as a mobile pioneer with over 25 years of experience in Mobile Enabling Technology. He is currently helping various start-up mobile companies to get to the next level. His last full-time gig was VP Strategic Marketing at Cellmania when MSX was acquired in January 2008. Peter started MSX in 2003 and built the company into a leader in the Mobile Subscriber Experience marketplace.

Before founding MSX, Peter was the executive vice president of operations at Insignia Solutions (INSG), responsible for repositioning the company as the leading mobile technology vendor, starting the end to end system provisioning business and divesting the Java Virtual machine product line. While at Phoenix Technologies (PTEC), Peter was the vice president responsible for growing the emerging businesses, including the Phoenix Information Appliance Division. From 1986 to 1994, Peter was founder and director of Distributed Information Processing Limited (DIP) who designed revolutionary software for the very first Pocket PCs for companies such as Atari and Sharp. Prior to DIP, Peter was one of the first employees of Psion Limited, Europe’s leading handheld manufacturer and lead shareholder of Symbian.

Amy Law, Senior Marketing Manager, devCentral- The AT&T Developer Program

Amy is the marketing guru for the enterprise side of devCentral and is passionate about building community wherever she is while having fun! She gets to wear all sorts of hats for devCentral, from program strategy, general marketing, and content development to working with partners to create compelling benefits, events, and offers, and even creative design and art direction just to name a few. Amy has fostered the successful AT&T ecosystem for wireless developers through a number of initiatives that bring many aspects of the development lifecycle to one place. She recruits and works with ISVs to get their applications certified, in catalogs, and out to sales field and customers. She also developed a self-serve marketing program for ISVs and OEMs with AT&T certified solutions. Watch the devCentral site at http://developer.att.com for some great new features in coming months! Prior to AT&T, Amy was a consultant at Microsoft for the Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) Program.

 

Ted Erfer, Director, Sales & Marketing, NSTL

 

 

 

Brent Melson, VP Technology, NSTL

 

 

 

 

John Phillips, Product Director, Connect2Media

John recently took the role as Product Director for Connect2Media a newly formed and innovative publisher of games and content for mobile phones. It combines the strength of existing pan-European operations and distribution of our game publishing operations with the development of new cross platform products and services for the web, i-TV and other converged platforms. Previously John had spent six years as both VP Business Development and VP of Marketing at Astraware Limited, which followed a five year tenure in the marketing department at Game (Stores) Ltd. In the UK.

Raised in the North West of England, John attended Manchester University and gained a First Class Honors Degree in English Language. Before settling in Marketing and Business Development, John had a varied career path which included time as a freelance music journalist, web designer and several months at Europe’s Premier Leisure Park where amongst other roles he performed daily in a giant dog suit!