The Global System for Mobile Telecommunications Association (GSMA) has announced additional keynote speakers for the 2010 Mobile World Congress, from February 15-18 in Barcelona, Spain.
The GSMA also revealed the list of application developer conferences (ADCs) to be held as part of the App Planet at Mobile World Congress.
New keynote speakers confirmed for the 2010 Mobile World Congress include Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe; Erik Huggers, director of Future Media & Technology; Manoj Kohli, CEO and joint managing director (BBC); Bharti Airtel president Lu Yimin; China Unicom president and co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis; and Daniel Ek, CEO Spotify.
Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan will make a special presentation to Mobile World Congress delegates on 16 February. She will discuss the impact mobile communications can have on extending education to the world’s population.
The queen is UNICEF’s Eminent Global Advocate for Children and is Honorary Chair of the UN Girls’ Education Initiative. She has supported Education for All, the In My Name Campaign, and the Class of 2015 initiative to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
She also serves as co-founder and global co-chair for 1GOAL, a campaign to promote global education in partnership with the international football body FIFA and the Global Campaign for Education.
The GSMA will also be hosting nearly 90 government delegations in its ministerial program for the 2010 Mobile World Congress, with approximately 40 ministers in attendance.
This represents an increase of more than 30% over last year’s attendance in the program, which brings together policy makers and industry leaders to discuss strategies for shaping the future of the mobile industry, as well as mobile’s potential to accelerate economic growth and advance social development around the world.
The inaugural App Planet event at Mobile World Congress continues to gain momentum, with industry leaders including RIM, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone and WIPJam, each hosting full-day ADCs.
In addition to hosting ADCs, Vodafone is a sponsor of App Planet, which will feature more than 120 exhibiting companies, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Intel, Qualcomm, RIM and Skype.
The GSMA expects between 3.000 and 5.000 mobile application developers to visit App Planet over four days.
App Planet will take place in Hall 7 of the Fira de Barcelona at Montjuic “Through its top-flight conference programme, expansive exhibition and focused specialist events, the Mobile World Congress addresses every aspect of the broad mobile communications ecosystem”, said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA.
“Attendees will learn about and experience first-hand the latest developments in core mobile technologies, the role of mobile in key vertical sectors such as healthcare, finance, media and entertainment, and the rapidly-evolving world of mobile applications. All of this reinforces Mobile World Congress’ position as the industry’s must-attend event”.
by Ikechukwu Osodo
