MoMo Global Peer Awards

11 February 2008, Barcelona

The Mobile Monday (MoMo) Global Peer Awards was held in Barcelona last week, as part of the GSMA Mobile World Congress. Twenty-seven companies, each representing different chapters of MoMo from around the world, presented products before 700 attendees.

As co-founder of Mobisy, I represented one of the three Indian start-ups that made it to the event. The others were Bangalore-based Ziva Software Pvt. Ltd and Chennai-based Mobile-worx Inc.

Companies showcased in two categories—early-stage, if the firm was founded in 2007, and emerging, if founded earlier. The demos included many interesting products and applications—Amsterdam’s Movels allowed download of books on mobile, Singapore’s mBit.tv offered peer-to-peer content-sharing and Dublin’s Funambol allowed powerful, Blackberry-like email applications on mobile phones with data connection. New York entry BuzzD.com, which offers city-based SMS search, won the jury, audience and the global MoMo chapter awards in the early-stage category.

Among emerging firms, Funambol won the jury, Madrid-based mobile content search and sharing company Kimia Solutions SL won the audience and London-based mobile search firm Taptu Ltd won the chapter award.

The congress itself was overwhelming. With 55,000 attendees, 1,400 exhibitors and 250 sessions, it was a huge spectacle for anyone who wanted to see where the industry is headed.

Lalit Bhise is co-founder and CEO of Bangalore-based mobile Internet start-up Mobisy Technologies Pvt. Ltd.