Why European (and African) mobile companies should come to CTIA this year

As many readers of this blog will know, CTIA is the North American equivalent of Mobile World Congress and takes place twice a year, once in the ‘fall’ and once in the spring. It’s the biggest mobile trade show in the world.

Unlike MWC, which will be in Barcelona for the next four years, CTIA takes place in different US cities, so over the years it has been in San Francisco, New Orleans, Atlanta and this year be in San Diego. It’s a great show and I’ve been going for years; it’s about the only time I ever go shopping.

This year, however, it will be different. Instead of running from meeting to meeting and trying to catch keynotes, I will be moderating a session of behemoth ‘disruptive’ companies and also running a ‘Speed Session’ of new and innovative companies… it’s an honour, really it is.

I was invited to do so by Rob Mesirow, Vice-President of Operations at CTIA and a man with a vertiginous career. We are working together on a number of verticals such as augmented reality, social impact, mapping, marketing and the plan is to come up with eight topics and my selected European (and African) companies will then go head-to-head against eight North American companies.

Each company has five minutes to convince a highly engaged audience of decision-makets how wonderful and innovative they are. It should be a little anarchic, in fact I will have a GONG to boot off companies if they’re boring. There will also be a networking session afterwards where the real business will be done.

I’m putting together a short-list of companies this week after crowdsourcing through my social channels and I have an idea of who will be represented, but if you’re interested in being involved please send an email to monty dot munford at gmail dot com or DM me on Twitter and I’ll add you to the list.

Naturally, if you want to pay me in champagne, visits to spas, Champions’ League tickets or exotic holidays for my family, then that’s not going to hurt your application, but by and large it will be meritocratic and the more the merrier.

We’ll probably have a bit of a party that night as well…

Monty (709 Posts)

Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.


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About Monty

Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.