Mumbai: The Mobile Applications Conference held on January 7, 2012 in Mumbai was specifically designed for mobile app enthusiasts to provide top level industry insights and enhance their knowledge in mobile apps space. Eminent speakers were part of the interactive panels and sessions which were discussed on the future of mobile apps amidst current challenges. Close to 300 delegates attended the event which gave them a good scope for networking and knowledge sharing.

‘Top Mobile Apps Competition’ was the special feature of the event which had Mobile Startup Cos featured their apps to compete for the most coveted prize of the ‘Best Application Developer’. CloudPact bagged this award and was crowned as the winner. CloudPact is a company that offers mobility solution called EmPact Enterprise where Enterprises can develop, deploy and monitor mobile applications in a secure manner.

Arvind Rao, CEO and Co-founder, On mobile, delivered the inaugural session on ‘The Future of Mobile Ecosystem’. The audience got a peek into the future of the mobile ecosystem. Rao spoke about the evolutionary steps to be adopted for a brighter and productive environment and shared his own exploration in context to challenges faced in today’s mobile space.

A session on ‘Thinking outside the network’ was vibrantly given by Nitin Bhandari, AVP - New Products and Partnerships, Vodafone who spoke about the milestones in Indian Telecommunication industry. Explaining further he discussed how telecoms have extended their reach to all walks of life.

Beerud Sheth, Co-Founder & CEO of Webaroo(Smsgupshup.com) spoke on ‘Social Mobile Apps: How does mobile redefine social networking?’ Sheth discussed about the pros and cons of mobile related social networking and how various mobile apps and mobile computing has redefined the social networking scenario.

‘Mobile Applications Explode. Who wins and who loses?’ a powerful panel discussion where the paradigm shift happening in the mobile application sector and the impact of it on every player in the mobile ecosystem -- from carriers and handset makers to the application developers was enlisted.

The next interactive panel was on ‘The Opportunity: It used to be ringtones — now what?’ wherein the attendees were exposed to the wide variety of opportunities in the mobile space right from simple apps to gaming apps to enterprise solutions.

‘Opportunities for entrepreneurs in the Mobile Space’ was an interactive panel where the panelists spoke about the enormous opportunities entrepreneurs can look out for and also the need to explore the potential of the country to gain their momentum within the mobile space. Speakers in this panel came from Venture Capitalist Firms who shared their knowledge and guided the entrepreneurs.

A ‘Top Mobile Apps Competition’ was conducted after the panel.  The jury members were Vineet chadha, Principal-Private Equity, Tata Capital, Gaurav Saraf, Director, Epiphany Ventures,Anil Joshi, Head-Operations, Mumbai Angels and Karan Mohla, Senior Associate, IDG Ventures India

‘Mobile Marketing’, was the closing panel  Pratick Thakrar, Founder & Managing Director, Imagine Worldwide one of the panelists said  “Mobile marketing in India is about to explode but one of the key challenges is understanding how to differentiate your application, or brand, to target audience groups via the mobile channel, as well as successfully integrating mobile with traditional channels.”

Randhir Singh Mangat, CEO Ironroad IT India was overwhelmed to see the new Apps being developed and promoted. “We were humbled by the overwhelming response showed by the visitors in knowing more about VMS and how video is going to be the mode of communication in future mobility services” said  Mangat

Overall the entire event provided a good platform for budding Entrepreneurs and the audience to bring their diverse thoughts by exchanging their experiences and new ideas. The event’s success would have been incomplete without the sponsorers; Airpush, Vodafone, UCWeb, ironroad, Playup and InMobi.