The 2010 Messaging Award Judges
Ewan MacLeod
Ewan is 32 and lives in Chiswick. He is founder and editor of Mobile Industry Review which provides news and perspective to 250,000 mobile industry executives and fanatics. He also writes the now infamous weekly newsletter where he vents forth on mobile-related opinion. His personal site is ewan.net and he's ew4n on Twitter.
Ken Banks
Founder, kiwanja.netKen Banks, founder of kiwanja.net, devotes himself to the application of mobile technology for positive social and environmental change in the developing world, and has spent the last 15 years working on projects in Africa. Recently, his research resulted in the development of FrontlineSMS, a field communication system designed to empower grassroots non-profit organisations. Ken graduated from Sussex University with honours in Social Anthropology with Development Studies, and was awarded a Reuters Digital Vision Fellowship in 2006, and named a Pop!Tech Social Innovation Fellow in 2008. Ken's work has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation and Open Society Institute, and he is the current recipient of a grant from the Hewlett Foundation.
Further details of Ken's wider work are available on his website at www.kiwanja.net
Ken Blakeslee
Chairman, WebMobility Ventures
Ken's involvement over the past few years has been specifically in the area of private equity investing in the mobile sector, and his previous experience in developing telecoms, IT and web commerce business strategies spans 25+ years. His recent focus has been on the emerging new media content, applications and commerce methodologies, and the merging of these with the ubiquitous, personal access of mobile.
Ken's Company, WebMobility Ventures, focuses on private investing and advising companies on bringing innovations in multimedia mobility to market. Prior to that he was Chairman of WirelessWorks with The Vesta Group, managing the investments of one of Europe's top networked venture capital funds, Frontiers Capital. In addition to being a venture partner, he established and was Chairman of their Board of Advisors. He has also served on the board of directors and advisory board of several companies, all innovatively active in various sectors of mobile investment, product definition and service delivery. Previously, he was VP of Business Strategy for Wireless Internet at Nortel Networks.
Ken has held numerous industry positions including chairman of the Mobile Data Association, vice chair of the UMTS Forum Market Aspects Group, and in 2001 was named to the GSM Association 'roll of honour' for 'longstanding commitment to the GSM industry'. In 2004 Ken launched and produced 'Cool and Connected' a 'Wearable Technology Fashion Show' and in 2006 the 'Innovation Showcase' of emerging key technologies at 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona and also at the International Broadcasters Conference in Amsterdam.
Ken was born, raised and educated in New England, USA (NH and Maine mostly) and has settled in the UK 'for the time being' (24 years so far!). kblakeslee@webmobility.com
Mike Grenville
160 Characters
www.160characters.org
As founder of 160characters.org, Mike Grenville works as a telecoms and mobile consultant, journalist and conference organiser since 2001.
Prior to setting up 160Characters, he was a key founding member and investor of managed voice and messaging alert services company RealCall (later renamed Adeptra). He helped take the company from initial angel investment through two funding rounds that raised $40 million and his roles included Head of Customer Services and VP Country Operations evaluating opportunities for overseas expansion.
Helen Keegan
A marketing and communications professional with over 20 years work experience, Helen has specialised in mobile marketing, advertising and media for the past 9 years. Helen was Head of Customer Experience at ZagMe, the location based mobile marketing pioneer back in 2000/1 and since then Helen has been consulting in mobile marketing, advertising and media consultancyfor clients including the BBC, NewsCorp, SonyEricsson, the English National Opera and Danone.
She runs the popular mobile networking event, Swedish Beers and also organises the Mobile Monday London events. She is a founder member of the Women in Mobile Data Association and blogs about mobile marketing and media over at technokitten.com and is a regular on the conference speaker circuit. Helen was recently voted in as one of the top 50 women in mobile content globally for Mobile Entertainment Magazine.
Michael Novikov
CEO & founder ADMIN Ltd. (IT, investments, consulting)
www.adminltd.com
Michael Novikov is report author, company founder and CEO of ADMIN Ltd. based in St. Petersburg. ADMIN Ltd. is a consultancy focused on mobile content industry development, electronic commerce, high-tech investments, IT market research, business consulting and international co-operation. He is also a producer of annual Mobile VAS Conference.
He is publisher/editor of the Russian Mobile Content News (weekly newsletter in English). He was a regular visitor of Esther Dyson's High-Tech Forum, a participant of The Second EU/CEEC Forum on the Information Scoiety (European ministerial telecom conference, Prague, 1996).
In 1998 he was invited to participate at the Eighth Regulatory Colloquium of the ITU/WorldBank (Geneva), a meeting of telecom regulators aimed to address policies and regulatory issues surrounding electronic commerce.
Michael studied biology at the St. Petersburg State University, economics and management at the LETI-Lovanium International School of Management (St. Petersburg)
Mike Short
Chairman MDA and VP O2
www.mda-mobiledata.org www.o2.co.uk
Mike's career spans 32 years in Electronics and Telecommunications, with the last 20 years in Mobile Communications. He was appointed Director of Cellnet (now O2 UK) in 1989 dealing with major infra-structure investments and UK interconnect agreements. In 1993 the focus moved to establishing Cellnet's GSM service and Roaming Agreements.
He was elected Chairman of the GSM Association for 1995/96 and served on their Executive Board for 5 years. He has also been a member of the UK Home Office Internet Task Force, UK OSAB (Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board). He is a member of the PhoneppayPlus Board ( UK regulator of paid for Telephony carried Content ) and Coventry University and Ravensbourne College Boards.
Mike has chaired the MDA since 1998, leading the Association as Chairman/spokesperson and on Regulatory matters. He is also a Visiting Professor at Surrey University and De Montfort University, and a Fellow of IET and BCS .
He was appointed VP Technology for O2 in 2000 . Mike's focus today is on advanced cellular technologies , Applications trials ( eg Mobile TV , NFC , and Transport/Environmental telematics) and steering O2's Group Research and Development in mobile.
Sandra Vogel
Sandra is a technology journalist. In previous lives she was an information scientist and before that an academic. These days Sandra spends much of her time writing about technology for a wide range of both business and consumer focussed clients. Examples include zdnet.co.uk where she writes reviews and has a blog called Marginalia, and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales for whose IT Faculty she writes regularly and at whose Web site, IT Counts, she blogs.
Sandra was a finalist in the first BlackBerry Women In Technology awards. Her latest book, Brilliant Laptops, is published in 2010 by Pearson.
