On Technology and the Future: Education, IoT, AI, Mobility, Games

Tag: Mobile World Congress Page 1 of 2

Barcelona, here we come (once more)

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On 10/02/2016

In Education, Events, Games

It is February, we’re still hanging in there, so we will again be descending upon that magnificent city in Catalunya that is Barcelona (which, of course, is that little bit less appealing because, together with us, there will be a ton of other mobile industry folks in town, so that taxis are hard to get, hotels hard to afford, and parties hard to get into, but, hey…). Because it is the week of Mobile World Congress…

This year, I have the great honour to moderate a high-octane panel at the MMIX portion of the Mobile World Congress on a topic that I could call “told you so”. Namely, we will be discussing “Games: the new destination for brands.” I will be joined by some super-cool names in the (pun/no-pun intended) game, namely:

Alas, that is of course not enough. On the very same day and only a short taxi ride down the road, I will have the great pleasure to delivering a keynote at the terrific 4YFN (that is short for “Four Years From Now”) conference, the uber-cool entrepreneurship conference that was the ugly duckling of its big sibling MWC but is soon catching up in size (and has, of course, overtaking MWC in terms of cutting edge ages ago). I will be keynoting with a spotlight on the education sector, urging people to “Change the World: One Trillion Dollar Market at a Time.”

Following my keynote at 4YFN will be a terrific panel on the hot trends in EdTech. It will be moderated by the CEO of Emerge Education (Europe’s leading EdTech accelerator where I am a Venture Partner) and participants will be Jesse Lozano (CEO of Pi-Top), Mads Holmen (CEO of Bibblio), Diego Olchese (CEO of Crehana) and Tom Hatton (CEO of RefMe). Definitely try to attend that one! It highlights the great work Emerge Education is doing and will also expose you to some of the brightest young CEO’s in the space, all of which passionate young entrepreneurs who have chosen to go where they can effect change (rather than puttering about with the 47th something-something-platform-SaaS-something play).

If you’re around, join me for those. It should be great fun! 🙂

[Disclaimer: I am a Venture Partner at Emerge Education, an investor in Pi-Top and an investor in and Chairman of Bibblio].

True Interconnectedness. What gives?

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On 19/03/2012

I did a little talk reminiscing on what was hot at this year’s Mobile World Congress, the mobile extravaganza in Barcelona. One of the show’s highlights was BlackBerry’s hyper-connected Porsche (See here for disclaimers) of which you’ll find a video here. Now, that car makes the most of the combination of powerful mobile-connected devices, protocols like NFC or Near-Field Communication and next-generation mobile networks (such as LTE), which deliver data bandwidth by far surpassing our relatively shoddy 3G data through-puts of today.

I also had a meeting with the good folks from Adidas who used their miCoach in-shoe chip to do some nifty stuff with the data so produced (video here). Adidas takes this one step further in that the performance of your chosen player in an accompanying mobile game. For the time being, this has to make do with a clunky accessory to your otherwise oh so smart phone. But, alas, these days are numbered thanks to the next generation of connectivity coming up right now. Apple’s latest (both phone and tablet) support the next Bluetooth standard, which would be version 4.0 (as opposed to “new”), and that is actually a huge step forward (considering how ickle it all is) and has understandably got its fair share of press recently. Here’s why:

Bluetooth 4.0 (full specs here), which comes as a “system in a package” has no noticeable impact on battery life of peripherals, which means you could effectively run your external keyboard or, perhaps more importantly to some, heart-rate monitor, on the same battery charge for the lifetime of the device. Oh, and it always handles NFC on top. The new standard handles up to 26 Mbps data throughput (compared to 2 Mbps for the older standards) although this is lower in the above-hailed low-energy mode.

All this put together creates potential for solutions that may not make for head-turning cool gadgets at tech conferences but they are things my mom might use: Just pair your phone with WiFi by touching in using an NFC chip (she could not find the settings for this if her life depended on it), use it for any type of fitness-related stuff, hook up any type of wireless device with the settings of, say, your car (probably with seamless handover of content, preferences, playlists, etc, too). Last but not least, the full range of healthcare all of sudden becomes a whole lot less geeky and a whole lot more accessible to normal people (which often was the problem with “modern” stuff: they worked well if you had an engineering degree or an unhealthy appetite for anything that smelled remotely geeky but was utterly unusable for anyone else). And for the geeks of you, there will always be the under-counter coffee-making faucet that you could then arguably also power using the hyper-connectedness of the brave new world.

So, interconnectedness is just about to enter the mainstream and that, dear friends, was the news of the week for me in Barcelona.

Where Next?

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On 02/01/2011

In Events

First of all, a wonderful, inspiring, innovative, exciting and successful 2011 to you all!

With lots of conferences (and corresponding travel) coming up, I thought I’d let you know where you will find me in the next few weeks:

The list will certainly fill up some more really soon but, so far, that is some of the confirmed bits. Oh, and I plan a week of skiing in Andorra… 😉 So if you want to catch up, learn more about Scoreloop or just connect, give me a shout.

And, apparently if you are so inclined, this year you shouldn’t forget to follow the (white) rabbit!

Barcelona, here we come (again)

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On 09/02/2010

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists, Events

This week is still all about Casual Connect Europe but then it is off to Barcelona for the annual mobile fest that is Mobile World Congress. I will be there from Sunday night onwards and you should earmark a couple of things (where you will likely be able to meet me, too):

Mobile Sunday has fast become a tradition amongst the mobile bloggerati and it is now being frequented by more and more industry folks. The list of attendees (which funnily still has me with an ancient affiliation that I haven’t held in years) reads well. Check it out and come by for a gentle kickstart into the week!

Next up is the Mobile Premier Awards, the global competition of Mobile Monday-nominated high-flyers where I had the great pleasure and honour to judge upon. The award night is on Monday.

On Wednesday, we have Swedish Beers (Facebook Event page) in Barcelona, which already had 254 confirmed guests (as per FB) the last time I checked.

And on Thursday, Caroline Lewko’s WIP Jam, the developer world’s leading and most beloved un-conference, opens its doors, an event I really look forward to. There’s a party for that, too, of course…

If you would like to get in touch, drop me a line through the contact form.

Mobile Premier Awards / Barcelona 2010

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On 22/01/2010

In 1

On 15 February, one of the most exciting showcases of mobile innovation of the year will be on display in Barcelona: the Mobile Premier Awards in Innovation. The awards are the largest start-up competition in the mobile sector and they are a unique grass-roots discovery tool: each chapter of the global community of Mobile Monday chooses one candidate. 49 candidates have been chosen (have a look further down). An international jury (I am flattered and proud to be a member) selects 20 finalists who will pitch in Barcelona at the Palau de la Musica on the afternoon of the first day of the Mobile World Congress.

It is a wonderful display of the innovation and creative power the mobile industry has to offer and I invite you to have a good look at the candidates.

If you are in Barcelona that week (and who isn’t?), you should make sure to book your ticket for the event here.

I hope to see you in Barcelona to celebrate innovation in mobile!

To stay in touch with everything around the awards, follow them on Twitter (@mobilepremier), become a fan on Facbook,

And, once your in Barcelona, you should not miss Mobile Sunday Barcelona 2010, which has fast become an unofficial kick-off event to MWC for mobile bloggers. It is on on Sunday, 14 Feb, from 7pm CET onwards.

Here’s a list of the 49 candidates (with links here):

Carnival of the Mobilists # 207

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On 18/01/2010

In 1, Carnival of the Mobilists

A fresh new year with the conference and rumour seasons already in full swing, 2010 promises to becoming an exciting one for all things mobile. So let’s be kicking off another Carnival of the Mobilists (it is carnival season, too, after all). What do we have this week?

Russell Buckley looks at the benefits but also disadvantages of a retail experience online, on mobile and on the high street. He looks at this from the perspective of search vs discovery and, alas, the mobile being, well, mobile, he predicts some impact. Suffice to say, it involves the renaissance of the (much beloved by me) local bookstore! Russell’s post is here.

Mark Jaffe has an almost lyrical contribution musing about “monetizing passion” (and he is quick to point out that, despite the closeness to that other show in Las Vegas last week, he is not talking about adult entertainment). It is an intriguing angle on a well-covered topic: he basically posits that the ability to digitally provide the immediacy of satisfying passion presents one of the greatest marketing opportunities around. I concur! His post is here.

WIP Jam contributes a very insightful guest post by Informa Principal Analyst Malik Saadi who suggests that the fragmented smartphonosphere (great word!) and resultant increasing costs of native development will provide a lever for the mobile web, and he reasons it well! He reckons that the low latency of next-generation networks (LTE et al) will make the web the new ubiquitous platform for app development. If the battery life of the devices holds up, I might add… Malik’s post is here.

The good folks at mobiThinking have a great overview of available mobile metrics reports from the various ad networks, and all of them in one place. A fantastic resource! Their write-up is here.

And, finally, Aviv Revach looks forward to the Mobile World Congress and the second most important thing (after actually finding a place to sit down for your meetings) and is assembling a compilation of networking events (and, well, yes, parties) in Barcelona. Make sure to check in on his post (which he will update) here.

Which concludes this week’s Carnival. Now get back to your work and if you are attending the Mobile Games Forum or the conference that starts the mobile build-up to this summer’s FIFA World Cup, namely M-Football (both in London), make sure to connect; I’ll be at both.

Image credit: http://cbertel.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/carnival-masks-2.jpg

Barcelona, here we come…

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On 16/02/2009

Judging by the many Twitter updates today, I seem to be the last one to arrive at Mobile World Congress tomorrow: everyone appears to being already in the midst of networking, hunting for new revelations and, well, parties and tapas.

I’ll be setting off tomorrow morning at the break of dawn, so if you would like to meet up, drop me a line. E-mail will be safest as the show is traditionally one of the most frantic ones. Try me at volker [dot] hirsch [at] gmail [dot] com.
If you’re into gaming and all things mobile entertainment, you might want to check into the Mobile Backstage event on Thursday. I will be contributing on a panel on next generation gaming. But there will also be proper celebrities around with will.i.am and Kevin Spacey headlining the music and film sections…
And then I’ll be back next weekend with hopefully interesting learnings to share! Adios!

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