The Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) concluded on April 28th after 3 days of exciting events.  Our first year hosting the conference at the Chinese National Convention Center turned out to be an amazing event featuring 4 stages: the main GMIC executive stage, the G-Startup competition stage and 2 appSpace stages for developers. Additionally, there was plenty of space for the 67 exbibitors to show off their innovative apps and products. Turn out for the conference was well beyond anyone’s expectations, reaching 3,281 total attendees!  There were exciting announcements and interesting insights given by our 123 speakers – a taste of the event courtesy of some of our media coverage follows.

VIP DINNER

John Liu of Google –

• Not Worried about his New Boss – Bloomberg and MarketWatch
• China Internet Market Should not be Treated Differently – Reuters

Dinner Discussion Panel –

• Strategy Reevaluation Needed for Groupon – TechCrunch
• Glass Ceiling for Foreign Tech Companies – TechRice
• Intellectual Property Protection in China – Penn Olson

MAIN GMIC EVENT

Charles Chao of Sina –

• No IPO on the Horizon – VentureBeat
• English Version of Weibo Coming! – PCWorld and TMC Net
• Ads on Weibo on the Way – Marbridge Daily and TheNextWeb
• Sina Weibo Contemplating 6 Potential Business Models – Marbridge Daily

Peter Vesterbacka of Rovio –

• Apple’s iPhone “changed everything” – AppleInsider and DigitalTrends
• Angry Birds Surpassed 140 million Downloads and Invades China – PC World, VentureBeat, Industry Gamers, and IT Proportal
• China Will Get Its Own Version of Angry Birds – NetworkWorld

Niklas Zennstroem of Atomico –

• Skype Founder Likes China for technology investments – Bloomberg

Phil Kemp of Nokia –

• Rural China is a Growing Target – PCWorld

Brewer Stone of Pacific Crest –

• IPO Surge Has Caused a Need to Hire More Bankers – Bloomberg

Wang Jian of Alibaba –

• New Mobile Operating System on the Horizon? – Seeking Alpha

NetDragon and DeNA –

• Mobile Games Partnership Announcement – TMC Net

Yu Yongfu of UC Mobile –

• UC Mobile Seeks Overseas Expansion – Global Times

Tencent –

• Looking for New Ways to Turn Profit in Mobile – Investor’s Business Daily

Live Event Blog –

• Day 1 – Penn Olson
• Day 2 – Penn Olson

G-STARTUP COMPETITION

20 startups from 9 countries were pre-selected to pitch their startup to a panel of respected venture capitalists and angel investors. Winners from two categories, Early-Stage Startups and Growth-Stage startups, were announced on April 27, 2011. G-Startup is hosted by GMIC and held in collaboration with Innovation Works, Chinaccelerator, and Plug and Play Tech Center.

• China’s Tech Gurus Pick Hottest Early-stage Startups – Venturebeat
• How to Go from an Idea to your First Investment – Penn Olson
• Indoor Location Position via Mobile Phones is Here – VentureBeat

Seed/Early-Stage Winners:

1st Place Winner: SmarTots – China

SmarTots is a mobile education platform for children aged 2-7. It brings together educators, parents, and developers to create an interactive, fun, and manageable learning experience for kids through mobile apps.  SmarTots strives to unlock the true educational value of mobile devices by providing parents with reports, parental tools and personalized recommendations across many hardware and software ecosystems.

http://www.smartots.com/

2nd Place Runner Up: Kwestr – China
Kwestr makes accomplishing goals social and fun. We do this by creating a social enabled narrative game layer on any event, thing or experience that you can do or dream up from practicing how to recycle paper to being a cool dad for a day. We give you badges for accomplishing your goals in a step by step manner while letting your friends be part of your journey to cheer and support you. You can try doing some of the Kwests that we make or you can create your own and challenge yourself or your friends to do it.
http://www.kwestr.com/

Growth-Stage Winners:

1st Place Winner:  Word Engine – Japan

Word Engine is the fastest way to permanently memorize up to 99% of all the vocabulary required for important subjects. Word Engine is fast, inexpensive and mobile, offering vocabulary courses for test preparation and special business needs.  Word Engine is a proven scientific solution already in use at hundreds of universities and multinational corporations around the world. We very much look forward to entering the China market.
http://www.wordengine.jp/

2nd Place Runner Up: 个信 – China

Gexin Hudong was founded at Jul., 2010, with 60 staff, among them 11 are high-tech developer with masters degree. Gexin was designed to focus on the wireless internet app developing, its first product Gexin is a PIM based SNS push channel, and is able to send free SMS.

http://www.gexin.im/

THANKS!
Thanks to all the sponsor, partners, speakers, staff , volunteers and participants  that made GMIC 2011 possible! See you all next year at GMIC 2012!

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