Wow, just under a month to go before we convene a truly amazing group of Boston-area leaders and upstarts in the ubiquitous field of mobile technology.
Mobile Madness 2012: Total Mobility is taking place March 14 at Microsoft NERD in Cambridge, MA, from 1:00–5:30 pm, with plenty of time for networking and catching up with old friends. I’m pleased to announce the full agenda, which you can check out here. The overarching theme is that mobile has had a huge impact on almost every area of our daily lives—and almost every industry. At Mobile Madness 2012, Xconomy Boston’s fourth annual spring conference, you’ll get to meet many of the innovators who are creating the future of these technologies and businesses.
A few highlights to point out:
—Jason Jacobs, CEO of FitnessKeeper, will open the conference with a talk about the future of consumer and social apps, with an eye toward Boston-area companies and trends. Jacobs is the brains behind RunKeeper, the successful mobile app that helps people track their health and fitness. He will then moderate a panel of other leaders making their way in the consumer mobile world: Michael Putnam from TripAdvisor, Merideth Flynn-Ripley of HeyWire, Jeff Chow of Spring Partners, and Charles Teague from LoseIt.
—We will convene a special session of “Boston’s mobile mafia” to talk about the future of mobile innovation in the region, with perspective and lessons from what’s been achieved over the past decade. In which areas can New England’s mobile entrepreneurs continue to lead the world? We’ll hear from Lars Albright of Session M (formerly of Quattro Wireless/Apple), Mike Baker of DataXu (formerly of Enpocket/Nokia), Tom Burgess of Linkable Networks (formerly of Third Screen Media/AOL), David Chang of Where/PayPal, Ryan Moore of Atlas Venture (invested in Enpocket and Where), Ted Morgan of Skyhook, and Jeff Glass of Bain Capital Ventures (formerly of m-Qube/VeriSign).
Note that Albright and Chang are also former m-Qube disciples, so there are plenty of interesting connections amongst the Mafioso. What’s more, some other prominent speakers throughout the day share history at m-Qube—Chris Gardner of Paydiant, Jennifer Lum of Apricot Capital (also a Quattro veteran), and Michael Schreck of Zmags.
—How are “big data” analytics and mobile platforms converging, and what are the opportunities and pitfalls in the sector? Chris Lynch of Vertica/HP and Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix Partners will address these questions, and more, in a keynote chat that will touch on applications ranging from advertising to marketing to location to commerce.
—Last in the program, but not least, we will have a startup showcase consisting of short “burst” presentations from five emerging companies across mobile apps, services, location technology, and advertising. More on those as we get closer to the day, but the presenters will be George Adams, Aaron Ganick, Jennifer Lum, Jeff Seibert, and Sravish Sridhar.
—Our other big-name participants will include Seth Priebatsch of SCVNGR, Andrew Paradise from AisleBuyer, and Paydiant’s Chris Gardner (on a mobile commerce panel moderated by Bob Hower of ATV); Micah Adler of Fiksu, Ernie Cormier of Nexage, and Miha Mikek of Celtra (mobile content/marketing panel moderated by Michael Schreck); Chuck Kane from One Laptop Per Child (special demo of tablet technology); and Greg Raiz of Raizlabs, Chuck Goldman of Apperian, Bill Seibel of Mobiquity, and Chris Willis of Verivo (panel on the future of mobile business strategies, moderated by Mark Lowenstein). You can check out the full rundown of sessions here.
We look forward to seeing you all at NERD on March 14. Tickets have been going really fast, but you can still register here.
