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September - 2014 - issue > CXO View Point

How GMIC Grew To Become The World's Largest & Most Influential Mobile Internet Conference

Gurpreet Singh, COO, GWC India and Producer of GMIC India
Friday, February 27, 2015
Gurpreet Singh, COO, GWC India and Producer of GMIC India
GMIC (Global Mobile Internet Conference) is an event for mobile industry professionals to network and exhibit their work.


The Western world has successfully hosted large-format conferences such as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas or the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. But an event of a truly global scale � and that too in a nascent world of mobile internet � was relatively unheard of in Asia, at least till few years ago when the Global Mobile Internet Conference (GMIC) made its humble beginnings in 2009. With merely 300 attendees, the initial aim of GMIC was to increase the dialogue between mobile internet companies in China and Japan. Next year, it more than doubled its attendees and in 2011, that number grew to over four times to touch 3200. The latest edition of GMIC in Beijing this year saw over 20,000 attendees. After debuting in San Francisco in 2012, we soon became Silicon Valley's biggest mobile conference. This year, we expanded to Tokyo and I now have the honour to oversee its launch it in India next month.


Many events try to become the go-to sources for the industry, but not every event grows into achieving what GMIC has become. Vaughan Smith the Vice President of Facebook described it thus: "The Valley needs to think more globally. With its focus on Asia, GMIC is among the few tech conferences in the Bay Area that's focused on important trends happening outside the US". In this edition of siliconindia, I try to share with you some of the secrets behind the tremendous success of GMIC in becoming a not-to-be-missed conference on every technophile's annual calendar. Phenomenal growth is not possible without some hiccups and challenges and I briefly share our philosophy on addressing those, too.


The biggest advantage for GMIC has been in its roots � from its very beginning, it was conceived as a mobile internet conference of the people, by the people and for the people of the industry. Hosted by the GWC, the leading membership based club for the global mobile internet industry, our objective has been very focused � a quest to connect mobile innovators globally to learn industry trends and emerging technologies in key markets. Such laser-sharp focus is the first step to build a global event.

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