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Key Note Speakers and Panelists:
Key Note Speaker;
Mr. Ralph Simon, CEO & Founder of Mobilium International, Chairman Emeritus & Founder of Mobile Entertainment Forum- Americas.
Leading mobile entertainment strategist Ralph Simon advises stars including Madonna, U2 and Lady Gaga on their mobile strategies, reflecting his status as one of the world’s top experts in mobile technology and the music business.
Ralph Simon: “My passion for trying to be right at the intersection point of music, technology and lifestyle usage and being in San Francisco and Silicon Valley in the early 90′s made me realise that this was the way of the future. I could see that mobile devices were changing lifestyles in Korea and Japan, and that it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world would get “mobilised”.”
Over the last 15 years, he has been a prominent global mobile trailblazer and innovator, helping grow the mobile entertainment and content industry, and playing a central role in its impact and presence worldwide. Specifically, Ralph recommends unique, practical ways to expand business and achieve profitability by growing revenues and maximizing impact from the use and distribution of mobile entertainment content, mobile music, messaging, mobile media technology and applications.
Website: www.mobilium.com
www.m-a-f.org
Key Note Speaker;
Mr.Tomi T Ahonen,Author, Consultant and Motivational Speaker
Tomi T Ahonen - Author, Consultant and Motivational Speaker - is the most published author on books about mobile. The former Nokia executive has relased twelve books on mobile topics and lectures at short courses at Oxford University.
Tomi is a most widely respected expert in high tech, already referenced in over 100 books by other authors. He is considered a significant thought-leader for the industry, best indicated by the unparalleled endorsement of his ideas by his peers, as he and his thoughts are referenced in 100 books by other authors and quoted in over 300 press articles in a dozen languages., Tomi is also the father of several widely referenced industry concepts and theories, including the Hockey Sticks theory, Connected Age concept, Generation-C for Community, and the 7th Mass Media taxonomy, each of which has also already been referenced in books by other industry thought-leaders. Tomi has been, seen on TV and has presented to a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people seeing him present at over 250 conferences on six continents
On January 3, 2012, Forbes ran a story featuring the Top 10 Power Influencers in Mobile around the world. Forbes measured the most influential mobile experts globally by Reach, Resonance and Relevance and rated Tomi Number 1, based on his Communities Dominate Brands blog, Twitter feed, and videos on YouTube.
Dr. Hans Wijesuriya, Group Chief Executive officer of Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka
Dr. Wijayasuriya has been the Chief Executive of Dialog Telekom PLC for over a decade since 1997 and together with a founding management team, who head the multiple facets of Dialog’s business, has seen the company evolve from being the 4th entrant to Sri Lanka’s mobile sector to the position of market leader and largest market capitalized company on the Colombo Stock Exchange.
Dr. Madanmohan Rao, Consultant and Author
Dr. Madanmohan Rao, a consultant and author from Bangalore, is research advisor at the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC). He is the editor of five book series: “The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook”, “The Knowledge Management Chronicles,” “AfricaDotEdu,” “World of Proverbs,” and “The Global Citizen.” He is the research director of Mobile Monday, a global network of mobile and wireless communication professionals.
Madan is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit, and has given talks and lectures in over 75 countries around the world. He also participates in consultations at UNESCO, IDRC, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) foundation.
Madan was formerly the communications director at the United Nations Inter Press Service bureau in New York, and vice president at IndiaWorld Communications in Bombay. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, with an M.S. in computer science and a Ph.D. in communications.
Mr. Suren Pinto, the Founder and CEO of WaveNET, Sri Lanka
Suren Pinto is the founder and CEO of WaveNET a leading supplier of value added service platforms for the telecommunications industry in Sri Lanka and the Region. Spearheading its global operations with customers and operations across South Asia, South East Asia, Australia and Africa he has been instrumental in transforming the company from a startup into a leader in innovative Data,Voice and Multimedia solutions.
A born entrepreneur, Suren has led WaveNET from the age of 19 when he founded the company to date and built around him a strong team of professionals delivering complex telecom solutions to some of the biggest networks in the region.
He is passionate about technology and contributes extensively to product vision and is actively involved at the strategic level of product development.
Mr. Shamal Ranasinghe, Co-founder -Topspin
Shamal Ranasinghe, Co-founder of Topspin, has been at the forefront of digital music product strategy and development for the past decade, and has been responsible for defining software and service best practices for leading companies in the digital music space. He embarked on his career in music application product management working with a product team that introduced one of the first digital jukebox software applications, RealJukebox. He later joined Musicmatch where he headed up the product team and was in charge of their web-services product development, which included the On Demand, Radio, and Music Store web-services.
Following the acquisition of Musicmatch by Yahoo! in 2004, Shamal created and led a product team focused on building data mining applications for the Media division of Yahoo!, and in 2007 started Topspin a highly progressive company whose raison d’être is helping artists earn a living.
Shamal is a graduate of the Northwestern University and a MBA from Stanford University.
Mr. Harsha Purasinghe, CEO, Microimage
Harsha founded Microimage in 1993 at the age of 19 while still in college. It was incorporated in 1995 as Microimage (Private) Limited in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Harsha developed the company from a desktop language software provider to one of the leading innovative software development company in Sri Lanka with regional presence and global recognition to date. From early days he has contributed and involved in all products in terms of ideas/ technical architecture / designing and strategy.
He posses over 10 years experience in the ICT field with diverse technology know how from enterprise software architecture/design/development to mobile technologies. Harsha was recognized as the “Most outstanding entrepreneur in IT/BPO industry in Sri Lanka” in 2007. Microimage Mobile Media the new subsidiary won the GSM Asia Mobile Innovation Award 2006 & also got commended at the GSM World Awards in Barcelona, Spain in 2007. Microimage has won many local and international awards & recognition to date for it's cutting edge innovations.
Mr. Dumindra Ratnayaka, CEO, Etisalat Lanka (Pvt) Limited
Dumindra Ratnayaka is the first Sri Lankan to have been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of ‘Celltel’ and continued to hold office throughout the brand change to ‘Tigo’ and thereafter was appointed as a Board Director of Etisalat Lanka (Pvt) Limited post its take over from Millicom Cellular in 2009. Dumindra joined the company at its inception over 20+ years ago and has held the position of CEO since 2001.
He was the Chief Technical Officer of the pioneer telecommunications network in Srilanka , Celltel , and was elevated to the post of CEO when the Company was experiencing a drastic decline in business due to competition which revolutionized the entire industry with GSM technology. Expressing sheer determination , courage and a never die attitude , Mr. Ratnayaka has successfully managed to steer the Company out of stormy seas and has brought about a tremendous change not only to his Company , but also to the industry at large.
Mr. Ratnayaka served as the Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce in the years 2002 and 2003 and is a graduate from the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka, with a 1st class degree in electronics and telecommunications.
Mr. Sanjaya Karunasena, CTO, ICTA, Sri Lanka
Sanjaya Karunasena is an Chief Technology Officer with nearly 15 years of industry experience.
Sanjaya has significant architecture and development experience in product development and enterprise software development, including experience in the retail, telecommunication, and eGovernment domains. He has experience in leading a 300+ engineering team, developing many enterprise solutions, providing strategic direction to improve software engineering productivity and software quality.
He is currently designated as the Head of Technology and Chief Software Architect at ICTA. In this role, while contributing to the design and the implementation of the nationwide SOA based ICT infrastructure, he provides technical guidance to variety of initiatives. Previously, he worked as the Director of Services in a leading SOA company, responsible for all client services and infrastructure services.
Mr. Hassan Shahid, Mobile DATA, Mobile Advertising, Content & Products Head , Mobilink GSM
Hassan Shahid is a mobile data expert with over 5+ years of experience in the telecom industry and specializes in fields such as mobile data, mobile advertising and content. He is presently the Head of Contents & Products and Assistant Manager Marketing VAS: Products & Value Added Segments at Mobilink GSM a subsidiary of the Orascom Telecom Holding Pakistan’s leading cellular and Blackberry service provider. With more than 31.6 million subscribers, Mobilink maintains market leadership through cutting-edge, integrated technology, the strongest brands and the largest portfolio of value added services in the industry, a broadband carrier division providing next generation internet technology as well as the country’s largest voice and data network with over 8,000 cell sites.
Hassan has made note worthy contributions at several conferences in including "Mobile Data 2011" – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, "Mobile VAS Summit 2011"- Singapore; "Mobile Broadband for Emerging Markets" – Dubai amongst others.
Mr. Idrees Butt, COO, SMSall
Idrees Butt is the COO of Pakistan’s first mobile social network ChOpaal (now called SMSall) one of the fastest growing SMS networks in Pakistan, used by hundreds of thousands of people to stay in touch, coordinate relief efforts and enable mobile communities. Over 4 Billion SMS have been sent using SMSall in Pakistan since its launch in early 2011. The Co Founder of ChOpaal, Umar Saif is recognized by the MIT Technology Review in its list of the 35 "World’s Top Young Innovators for the year 2011". The list recognizes the works of the world’s top young innovators that are radically transforming technology and features the likes of Google’s Sergey Brin and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Idrees Butt is the company COO of SMS-all which now houses over 400,000 established communities, with 1.5 million registered users, 2.5 million users through corporate clients and has exchanged whopping 4 billion text messages on its network to date.
Mr. Osama Manzar, Director, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Delhi, India
" Let us connect for the larger vision of knowledge and digitally enabled societies worldwide"
Osama manzar is a convert social entrepreneur spearheading the mission to overcome the information barrier between India’s rural sector, and the so-called developed society, through Digital Empowerment Foundation(DEF) – the not-for-profit organization founded to accomplish the mission; www.defindia.net. The Manthan Awards South Asia which recognizes the best and most innovative e-Content from the South Asian Region and celebrates its 9th successive year in 2012 is the brain child of Osama. In 2010, recognizing the major role the mobile can play in reaching out to the masses, Osama launched mBillionth Award to recognize the creativity of developers of mobile content and services. Osama is the e-Content Expert for
India for World Summit Award(WSA), a member of the WSA Grand Jury and is also a of the WSA. He has been a part of the Professional Social Entrepreneurship Program by Social –Impact International; www.Socialimpact.org .
Dinesh Saparamadu, Founder/CEO hSenid Mobile
Dinesh is the Founder and CEO of hSenid Group of companies, which he originated 14 years ago, after returning from USA. hSenid has established itself as a leader in providing Enterprise and Mobile application platforms & services. hSenid Mobile, one of its subsidiaries, specializes in cutting edge Telecom-mobile software solutions such as Mobile VAS & Service delivery solutions for Mobile Operators in emerging markets, whilst hSenid Business Solutions, its HR & Enterprise IT arm focuses on state of the HRIS solutions for various enterprises. The hSenid group serves 24 countries with over 650 customers.
In the United States, where he lived for over 10 years, he worked at Pepsi-Cola, Aetna life and Casualty, in various fields of Information Technology.
Dinesh is Chairman Emeritus of SLASSCOM, IT & BPO Chamber in Sri Lanka. He also serves on many advisory boards on IT education, competitiveness, and IT policy.
Prabhath Gamage, General Manager - Product Development and Customer Solutions
Prabhath Gamage is a well seasoned Product Development and Customer solutions personnel in the Telecommunications domain. His passion for innovation and new product development made him initiate and inspire several new activities in his career. He is result oriented and has an eye for detail without losing the bigger picture.
He joined Mobitel (Pvt) Ltd in 2007 after serving 12 years at Ericsson Sri Lanka as a Technical Manager who had the responsibility towards performing tasks related to technical coordination which relates to technical solutions, network design, sales support and system services support for the key account.
He carries extensive portfolio knowledge of global product and service knowledge with him in his 12 years experience at Ericsson. He holds a Degree in Computer Science and Masters in Business Administration in Technology at University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
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