The GSMA today announced several new developments for the 2011 GSMA Mobile World Congress (MWC), which will be held Feb. 14-17, 2011, in Barcelona, Spain.
Building on the success of the inaugural App Planet event held in 2010, the GSMA is expanding the developer-focused program at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2011 to include new elements such as Macworld Mobile and the Brand App Challenge.
GSMA also announced RIM and Palm as the first Application Developer Conference (ADC) partners for App Planet. Finally, the GSMA announced that the CEOs of América Móvil, HTC, Vodafone and WPP have joined the list of keynote presentations at Mobile World Congress.
"The developments we are announcing today, particularly the launch of Macworld Mobile which will target the critical Apple developer community, will serve to make App Planet and Mobile World Congress the epicenter for the app world," said Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer for GSMA, in a statement.
At Mobile World Congress 2011, the GSMA is partnering with IDG World Expo, the organizers behind Macworld, to produce Macworld Mobile, a mobile developer event for the Apple iPhone and iPad platforms. The Macworld Mobile iOS Developer Conference will provide full-day, in-depth training on the platform, with technical sessions, targeting tools and applications specifically designed for mobile application developers and engineers.
Meanwhile, GSMA is creating a competition focused on mobile application developers creating "brand apps" for a select number of global consumer brands. Developers will compete by creating customized mobile apps for the participating brand sponsors based on the objectives and guidance provided by the individual brands. The competition will begin in October with the finalists being named approximately one month before Mobile World Congress 2011. The Brand App Challenge winners will be announced as part of the Mobile World Congress conference program and will receive cash awards for their winning efforts.
The GSMA continues to expand its lineup of keynote speakers at MWC and today announced new keynote speakers, including: Daniel Hajj, CEO, América Móvil and Telce; Peter Chou, CEO, HTC; Vittorio Colao, chief executive, Vodafone; Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive, WPP.