This year, our vision of “Connecting Global Innovators” was brought to life at GMIC SV as we brought together over 5,400 attendees from 58 countries for 2 days in Silicon Valley. GMIC SV was clearly not just another tech event. Our hope was that through GMIC SV, you would be able to better understand and connect with the global mobile industry and ultimately, grow your business. And, with the support of over 60 partners, 45 advisors and 20 sponsors, we successfully fulfilled that vision.
9 stages with 200 speakers
From the Main Stage to the Global Stage to stages dedicated to startups and apps, we built a platform for attendees to hear from all aspects of the mobile industry. Attendees were able to learn from mobile-industry leading companies and thought leaders.
Some of the highlights include Vaughan Smith, Facebook’s VP of Mobile, as he revealed the social networking site’s new focus on product development and takes on “mobile-first efforts”.
John Riccitiello, CEO of EA, focused on the potential that mobile now provides for gaming and debuted new racing games that will be released by EA on its mobile platforms later this month on our Main Stage.
Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, chatted with Yuri Milner, Founder of DST Global, on our Main Stage about his disruption of the traditional hardware manufacturing industry by integrating hardware, software and internet all in the Xiaomi phone.
Full news coverage from these keynotes speakers can be found below:
Facebook VP: We Pivoted To Create The Right Mobile Experience First, The Desktop Can Catch Up Later (TechCrunch)
EA CEO: ‘Consumers won’t pay for crap’ in social and mobile games (VentureBeat)
Yuri Milner And Chinese Billionaire Lei Jun Discuss The Future of Mobile For China’s Answer To Apple (Forbes)
More coverage of GMIC SV 2012 in the news can be found here. You can also find complete coverage from GMIC SV 2012 on MobiSights.
Also, if you missed it, you can watch the sessions from speakers on our Main Stage.
Just for fun: Tim Draper, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, singing and dancing on our Main Stage
10 country specific sessions on our Global Stage
40 speakers from 10 different panels on the Global Stage provided specific perspectives from some of the top trending mobile markets around the world including Brazil, India, China, Japan, EU, the Middle East and others.
Opening with a keynote by Francisco Varela “YouTube and the Evolution of Mobile Video”, the Global Stage covered all the major emerging markets for mobile and had an amazing two days of speakers and energetic dialogue with audiences.
From Bay Brazil‘s panel discussion, Jay Sullivan, VP of Products for Mozilla, highlighted Mozilla’s plans to release their first smartphone in Brazil and debuted a prototype of the phone on our Global Stage.
170 Exhibition, Innovation and Recruiting Booths
GMIC SV’s Expo Area connected industry-leading tech companies with mobile techies and entrepreneurs. The full list of companies that were present at GMIC SV can be found here.
100 apps from 14 countries competing in appAttack
From the Top 100 mobile apps chosen to compete in appAttack, Waigo Translate from the U.S. was declared the winner of our global competition on Day 2. Waigo is an ideal companion for travel to China as it provides an instant Chinese translation of any restaurant menu via your iPhone. Never order the wrong food again!
Waigo Translate received $5000 USD from StartMeApp, $10000 USD in credit from appsfire, and a Nexus 7 tablet from Google admob.
20 competing startups from 10 countries in G-Startup
Beginning with over 120 applications from 24 countries, G-Startup narrowed down the pool of startups competing at GMIC SV to the Top 20 on Day 1. These competitors were split between two categories, with 10 finalists each in the Seed Stage and Growth Stage phases.
Day 2 kicked off on our Main Stage with the announcement of the G-Startup winners. These startups were given the chance to pitch for 5-7 minutes on the Main Stage, and an opportunity to join a leading incubation program in the Valley.
G-Startup Seed Stage Winner: Disherence. Disherence is an early-stage company from Russia and shows you the best dishes in any restaurant.
G-Startup Growth Stage Winner: Scandit. The growth stage company from Switzerland provides a best-in-class barcode scanning technology, product data, and analytics services.
Networking Events:
Networking events included GMIC Night where we had Miss Silicon Valley, a fashion show and a dance contest for attendees to enjoy over complimentary beer.
The winner of GMIC Night’s Dance Contest:
GMIC SV then ended with a bang at our After Party, hosted at Studio 8 in downtown San Jose, where attendees were able to relax and network over a night of drinks and dancing.
For more pictures, you can browse through our Facebook photos to re-live the exciting moments of GMIC SV this year.
Don’t miss our Photo Booth pictures as well. Please feel free to tag yourselves and keep those memories on your own Facbook page!
All in all, we’re proud to say that GMIC SV 2012 was a resounding success as it became this year’s mobile industry defining event in the Valley. And it will be even bigger and better in 2013. We look forward to seeing you there next year!
