Twitter founders join Eric Schmidt at GSMA 2011

10 Aug 2010

The CEO of Google Eric Schmidt will once again take to the stage at the next GSMA World Congress in Barcelona and will be joined by the founders of Twitter Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey who now runs Square.

Also speaking at the Mobile World Congress will be Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T, Li Yue, president of China Mobile and Paul Jacobs, chairman and CEO of Qualcomm.

Mobile World Congress will take place 14-17 February 2011 at the Fira de Barcelona in Barcelona, and is expected to draw more than 50,000 attendees.

Under the theme of “Leading the Transformation”, the 2011 Mobile World Congress conference programme will feature dedicated tracks on applications, advertising, mobile money, mHealth, embedded mobile, next-generation technologies and OSS/BSS, as well as breakout sessions exploring business strategy, cloud computing, consumer electronics, devices, media and entertainment, network capacity and social networking.

In addition to the four-day conference programme, Mobile World Congress will also include an exhibition showcasing the latest mobile technologies and solutions from industry-leading companies such as Alcatel-Lucent, Bharti Airtel, Ericsson, Etisalat, Huawei, LG, Nokia Siemens Networks, Qtel, Samsung, SK Telecom, Vodafone and ZTE.

The GSMA will again hold its award-winning App Planet at Mobile World Congress, bringing together the many critical elements of the broad mobile application ecosystem together in one location. 

“With a stellar lineup of keynote speakers comprised of the leaders of the world’s most influential companies in mobile, the 2011 edition of Mobile World Congress is set to be one of the most exciting yet,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer, GSMA. “Through the conference programme and exhibition, Mobile World Congress attendees will gain important insights into the trends that are shaping the mobile industry, as well as the opportunities and challenges for players across the broad mobile ecosystem.”

Earlier this year Siliconrepublic.com provided coverage of the Mobile World Congress in February.

At the event Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed Google’s new ‘Mobile First’ ethos. “Applications are coming that are sharing intensive. The generation of app developer before cloud computing thought about making local copies on servers. Now it is all about sharing and replication.

“This means we are building powerful, interlinked systems. Over time each of these waves – computing, telecoms and the need for servers – intersect at a particular point. It was the mainframe, then the PC. I’m pleased to say that everything will be in the context of powerful mobile phones.

“The mobile phone is the meeting point. An app that does not leverage the power of the cloud is not going to wow anybody and will be too narrow,” Schmidt said earlier this year.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com