Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board of the GSMA said: "More than 450 companies spanning internet, finance, advertising, music, television and gaming submitted entries for this year's Awards, reflecting the diversity and breadth and depth of our industry. Even in uncertain economic times mobile is seeing continued growth, with more than four billion mobile connections globally, and this growth is driven by innovation in new services, applications and ever richer mobile content. Our congratulations to the winners and all those who participated."
The event included a special guest appearance from producer, artist and front man of the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am, who performed his latest single ahead of his keynote speech at the Mobile World Congress on Thursday (Mobile Backstage, 19 February), and was followed by Jamie Cullum, the Grammy, BRIT and two-time Golden Globe nominated jazz artist, who played in front of more than 900 senior executives and mobile industry leaders.
The 2009 Global Mobile Awards winners
The EMEA leg and final stage of the 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Award Competition also took place this week at the Mobile World Congress, where 15 nominees competed in five categories for the chance to pitch their innovative products and services against finalists from the Asia, Americas and Virtual legs of the competition for the title of 2009 Mobile Innovation Global Award Champion.
Winner: Cootek, China (Most Innovative Wireless Device-centric Technology
Global Finalist: Advanced Receiver Technologies, USA
Global Finalist: Intivation, Netherlands
And the five category winners are:
The GSMA's Mobile Innovation initiative has also launched a new awards format as part of the 2010 Global Mobile Awards. The Mobile Innovation 'Grand Prix' will showcase promising entrepreneurs from small and medium-sized companies developing and introducing innovative products and services that seek industry support in order to achieve market deployment. The first leg of the competition, the EMEA Tournament, will take place at the World Innovation Summit in Barcelona in June, and entry opens on 25 February, 2009.
For more information on the Mobile Innovation Grand Prix visit www.mobileinnovation.org/awards.
The Platinum sponsor of the Global Mobile Awards is Qualcomm, and category sponsors include: A.T. Kearney (Green Mobile category), Purple Labs (Best Mobile Handset category), Movius (Marketing and Promotion category), HiT (Mobile Entertainment category), and the Government of Catalunya (Mobile Innovation category and host sponsor).
