New date confirmed for Forum Nokia Developer Conference in India

A new date has been confirmed for the Forum Nokia Developer Conference in Bangalore, India. This developer conference was originally planned to be held on December 10, 2008 but was rescheduled due to the unfortunate and shocking events in Mumbai in late November 2008. Forum Nokia decided to reschedule the event in the interest of the safety of the conference participants, partners and Nokia employees, as also keeping in mind the mood and sentiment of the nation. The conference will now be held on 20th January, 2009 at the Taj Residency in Bangalore.

The event is bringing in experts from all entities of the telecom ecosystem to educate developers in India in light of the upcoming 3G deployment. There will be a mix of technology and business speaker sessions.

NAVTEQ will participate in the conference with a demo pod and a 30-minute speaker slot in the afternoon Technology & Platform Showcase session about LBS as the key to future mobile innovation. The presentation will give an overview of market trends, various mobile development aspects of LBS, available APIs and how NAVTEQ can help developers accelerate LBS development and success.

“LBS the key to future innovation - Accelerating LBS development & success”
Speaker: Tom Tierney, Head of Partner Alliances, NAVTEQ Partner & Developer Programs

The presentation will give an overview of market trends, things to consider - including available mobile APIs - when creating innovative location-enabled applications for mobile phones using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ® maps, and how NAVTEQ can help developers accelerate their LBS development and success. Topics that will be covered:

• The prospects of LBS in India & insights on how LBS is doing worldwide
• High-level overview of mobile API's and tools for LBS development
• Getting started developing LBS apps – tips & resources from NN4D
• Devices & platforms supported in the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge, how to register for the APAC region and become successful in the competition

Tom has over 20 years of licensing, sales and business development experience in content and new media. He is currently heading a team of partner managers responsible for sourcing and managing platform and application partners to NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D) and associated programs and services such as the NAVTEQ Connections™ portal as well as securing sponsors for the annual NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge®. Immediately prior to joining NAVTEQ, Tom ran his own M&A practice, producing deal flow, valuations and transactions as a licensed business broker. Tom’s position allows him the unique opportunity to provide business support to innovative entrepreneurs working with location-based services and emerging technologies.

Nokia is a global device sponsor of the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge and APAC registration is open until February 13th, 2009. Developers attending the event will get the chance to find out what they need to become successful in the competition.

For more information on the event and to register, check out the event website here>>

More information

• Nokia Developer Conference ’09: http://www.nokiadevcon.in/
• Participate in NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge APAC: http://developer.navteq.com/site/global/lbs_challenge/apac/home/p_apac_home.jsp

Making inroads in India

Keynote and LBS panel at COMSNETS 2009 Business Track in India

The COMmunication Systems and NETworkS (COMSNETS) 2009 will be held at the Chancery Pavilion in Bangalore, India on January 5-10, 2009. This is an international conference dedicated to addressing emerging topics and challenges in networking and communications systems. The conference will gather researchers from academia and industry, practitioners, business leaders, intellectual property experts and venture capitalists, providing a launch pad for new innovative business and technology. For full conference schedule, please visit http://www.comsnets.org/schedule.htm.

NAVTEQ has been invited to hold the opening keynote in the Business Track on January 6th and well as participate in a 1.5 hour panel on Location-Based Services and Other Advanced Mobile VAS Technologies later that day.

The Business Track is a one-day event forming part of the larger conference and its objective is to provide a platform for operators, mobile Value Added Services (VAS) providers and investment agencies to come together for possibly forging business alliances.

The Business Track will run between 9am and 6:45pm on January 6th, and include three panels:

• Mobile VAS in the Enterprise
• Mobile Entertainment
• Location-Based Services and Other Advanced Mobile VAS Technologies

NAVTEQ’s keynote speaker and panelist will be Marc Naddell, Vice President, Partner and Developer Programs. He leads a fast-paced international team providing complete development resources, information and technical support to application developers around the world for building innovative location-based services (LBS) for enterprise and/or consumers using dynamic positioning technology and NAVTEQ® maps. Marc's team engages with key technical and strategic partners to accelerate development by providing choices in geospatial platform tools, business channels, value-added technologies and alternative content, made available through NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D).

The conference is international in nature and the business track will focus on the developer ecosystem. Marc’s impressive international experience and expertise in working with mobile VAS developers all over the world makes him ideal for the opening keynote.

The Business Track will also include an Entrepreneurs Demo Showcase, where presentations will be made by six innovative entrepreneurial enterprises to a panel consisting of Venture Capitalists and operators who will assess the product/ services and give feedback. Marc will be in the panel of judges.

COMSNETS is in the middle of the registration period for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge 2009. The event is a perfect opportunity for mobile VAS companies in the region to explore and discuss new scenarios for LBS, and how to use the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge to fuel their future.

This promises to be a very interesting conference in a rapidly expanding market which has a large and growing Indian developer community. Registration details can be found at: http://www.comsnets.org/reg_fee.htm.

More information

• Comsnets 2009: http://www.comsnets.org/
• Participate in NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge APAC: http://developer.navteq.com/site/global/lbs_challenge/apac/home/p_apac_home.jsp
• NAVTEQ Network for Developers: www.nn4d.com

Russian association of software companies arranging first mobile developer event

In the summer of 2008, Forum Nokia and RUSSOFT (Russian association of software developing companies) agreed to establish a committee within RUSSOFT Association that will stimulate software development for mobile devices. Forum Nokia expressed their ambition to drive activities that would be informative and tutorial in nature and focused on supporting software developers working with various mobile platforms and programming languages. Within the framework of the partnership, Forum Nokia in cooperation with RUSSOFT plans to hold seminars and conferences on mobile platforms, in order to inform software developers and RUSSOFT members of business opportunities in the mobile technology space, help RUSSOFT members attract new partners and push the most interesting products to the international markets.

Now it’s time for the first Russoft Mobile Software Forum, specifically targeting major customers and software companies in the field, as well as young entrepreneurs and students in the Russian market. There is an interesting line-up of important players showing commitment to help grow and educate the Russian developer community. Forum Nokia is a Gold Sponsor of the Forum and NAVTEQ is happy to announce its Silver Sponsorship of this event, which will be held in St. Petersburg, Russia on December 16th, 2008. Also Microsoft and Intel are sponsoring the event.

In the morning there are some opening presentations from the Mobile Software Forum Committee members, followed by an overview of mobile software market trends worldwide by Gian-Luca Cioletti from Nokia. After this, there will be two break-out sessions and NAVTEQ has been invited to speak in the Business stream which will be in English (with translation into Russian):

11:40-12:20 – “Location adds value, NAVTEQ offering for the mobile developers”
Pia Vuohelainen, Partner Manager, Partner & Developer Programs at NAVTEQ

Pia believes that every mobile developer will be taking advantage of location within the next five years. We are currently expanding the horizon from pure navigation applications into a wider spectrum of location aware services. In her presentation, Pia will be exploring the concepts of the “Experience Economy” where applications will not only be location-aware but also context-aware and based on the individual user’s needs and preferences. NAVTEQ Network for Developers (NN4D) has a key role to play in this scenario and Pia will cover the developer resources and services that Russian software developers can take advantage of.

Pia has been working in the telecommunications industry for over 10 years in the areas of partnership management, sales and marketing. Prior to joining NAVTEQ, she was a consultant conducting user-experience research and service design projects in the areas of mobile internet and LBS. For several years Pia worked with Nokia’s mobile software and developers, and she has also worked with the world's leading EDA software company, Cadence Design Systems. She holds a master’s degree in industrial management and business administration from Tampere University of Technology.

There will also be a panel discussion at the end of the day on the future of the mobile software market in Russia, led by Valentin Makarov from Russoft.

Other speakers at the event include Digia, Iricom, Microsoft, Nokia, Paragon Software and Speereo.

NAVTEQ will also participate in the demo area with information on available resources and mobile APIs for development of LBS enabled applications, a showcase of LBS-enabled devices and applications.

For more information on the event and to register, check out their website

• English: http://fort-ross.ru/msf/index_eng.php
• Russian: http://www.fort-ross.ru/msf

More information

• Russoft events>>
• Russoft Mobile Software Forum>>
• Forum Nokia joins RUSSOFT Association – Special committee on mobile platform software development established>>
• Participate in NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge – the APAC track is still open: http://www.lbschallenge.com/

NN4D.com Content Overview.

Here is a short little video to give you an overview of the resources available to you when you become a member of the NAVTEQ Network for Developers at NN4D.com