Mobile Monday - Starting Point of a Big Way

In 2011 Baku joined Mobile Monday (MoMo) project, which is an open platform for co-operation and creating business opportunities in mobile industry. MoMo has been functioning since 2000, and our city became the 123rd in the total list of participants.

The mobile area in Azerbaijan is a prospective sphere, with notable achievements got in a quite short period and also with a great number of development opportunities. That is why Mobile Monday was immediately met with a big interest either by companies, or by individuals, who perform their activities in the mobile area.

Elshan Musayev is the initiator of Mobile Monday project in Azerbaijan. After the agreement had been signed between E. Musayev and International Mobile Monday Organization, the project was officially launched in our country.

From the day when the project was launched in Azerbaijan the first local mobile operator Bakcell became a supporter and the official partner of MoMo. Different organizations of young developers in mobile area also expressed their will to join the events dealing with the future of mobile industry. Mobile Monday was supported also on governmental level as an activity, organized within implementation of the State Program "Azerbaijan Youth in 2012-2015" signed by the President of Azerbaijan Republic on 07.06.2010. Ministry of Youth and Sport is also represented in MoMo activities, as the deputy ministry Intigam Babayev took part in the starting activity of Mobile Monday in Azerbaijan.

As every new area of activity, the mobile industry in Azerbaijan has to be improved and developed in different directions. The need in improvement is obvious if to take into account, how mobile networks are involved in everyday life of the people in the country and how fast the usage of mobile devices has been increased in recent year. And certainly the best way to find solutions in business matters is a dialogue between interested parties. That is what Mobile Monday undertakes to organize. Each MoMo event is a meeting of leading companies’ representatives, highly-rated specialists, young developers and other people, who relate to mobile industry. Here the authors of the projects make presentations and get a chance to attract attention, while companies can find here new ideas and new partners.

It is worth of noticing, that a topic of every next meeting is chosen by participants themselves on a previous event, what gives a guarantee that only key issues will be on agenda. Up to this day Mobile Monday has held several events in Azerbaijan, where different aspects of the mobile industry were discussed. As the most part of the people involved in mobile industry are young, it was decided to organize an event devoted to the development of youth mobile entrepreneurship. Foreign specialist introduced young participants to the guidelines of the business in this area and shared the experience of different countries. Another event was dedicated to mobile games market in Azerbaijan. Young developers of mobile games presented their products and exchanged their thoughts on difficulties in this sphere. One of the topics of MoMo events were mobile payments and their perspective in Azerbaijan. Participants made interesting dispute trying to find an answer to the question, whether there is a need in mobile payment systems in the country. Developers, specialized in this area, demonstrated their products and discussed its features with the potential customers.

Today the leading mobile operators of the world are increasing their revenues from mobile contents and mobile applications market. What about the providers of mobile service in Azerbaijan? Are they ready to step to the area different than calls, messages and internet? Are there enough local developers to collaborate with the operators in this direction? These questions were being asked in the recent meetings of Mobile Monday, dedicated to mobile contents and applications. Long discussion has revealed that many obstacles are not still removed in order to initiate a massive work in the area of mobile contents. But the meetings of MoMo show that the solid ground for proper actions exists. This ground consists of the companies which are eager to accept the offer and young developers who have skills and ideas. The matter is to find common points, which can lead to successful partnership. Young specialists presented their projects, achievements and explained their needs required for improvement. On the other hand company representatives demonstrate their readiness for co-operation, but also introduce developers with their own conditions. It is decided by participants to continue dialogue within MoMo meetings in order to get answers to their questions and find real ways to make a breakthrough.

Mobile area is a big stage for huge business steps. The experience of European countries, United States, also Turkey and Russia delivers plenty of examples, how to get success in this area, both for companies and developers. Mobile Monday aims to create a platform for everyone, who is interested in performing activity in mobile industry. This platform is able to make a good impact to development, while most of success depends on how supply and demand will meet each other. This area is new in Azerbaijan, and it means that people, who involved to the process, might lack experience yet. Therefore it is vital for all members of the ‘mobile community’ to come together and exchange their thoughts. For a relatively short period MoMo meetings have covered various topics, mentioned above, and all of those issues are very important for the future of mobile. Development of the modern technology is a process, which is sometimes going too fast, as we realize. That is why the time must not be wasted. Even a small chance could be crucial further. And the purpose of Mobile Monday is to put chances closer to those, who are looking for them.