Connecting with modu

Last night was the premier event of The Mobile Monday Tel Aviv Chapter which took place at Elizabeth Pub in Herzliya Pituach about 10km north of Tel Aviv also knows as the Silicon Coast!

For those who haven’t heard of Mobile Monday, Mobile Monday is a global nonprofit organization that helps bring together mobile professionals around the world through monthly gatherings and other activities.

The event brought out a roster of guests from the mobile industry for the purpose of networking, drinking and listening to lectures about our ever evolving industry.  The event was well organized by Jasmine Ahron, Ohad Barzilay, Ofir Leitner, Itamar Weisbrod & Aviv Revach all reachable via the MOMO TLV Facebook Group

I was there along with Meir Deutsch, Director of Knowledge and Research demonstrating modu around the crowd while enjoying the great atmosphere.

Full pics of the event - Premiere Mobile Monday TLV

modu will be presenting at the the first annual Israel Presidential Conference: Facing Tomorrow, which is scheduled to take place between May 13-15. This international convocation will look closely at the trends and developments that are mapping the future.

modu will be one of 60 “enterprises of tomorrow selected from a candidate list of 285 in the areas of environment, medicine, technology, transport, and society. Present and former presidents, prime ministers and senior officials from 27 countries will also take part in the conference.

If you’ll be in attendance at the event and would like to schedule a meeting or to get an up-close look at modu and its ecosystem, let me know in the comments bellow.

Full details are available at the official site : www.presidentconf.org.il/en

modu Opens its First European Office to Deal with Growing MNO Demand

The Austrian office will be led by Mr. Karl Pfister, Head of European Sales at modu. Before joining modu, Mr. Pfister was the Director Telecommunications at Samsung Electronics CEE for four years, and prior to that he held senior management positions at Nokia in the US, Finland, and Austria. Mr. Pfister has more than 20 years experience in senior management, sales, and business development at leading global companies such as Samsung, Nokia, Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Microsoft.

Mr. Pfister said: “modu has taken the mobile handset market by storm since its launch earlier this year, thanks to its unique and disruptive approach. Mobile network operators instantly understand and are attracted to the modu proposition. I have worked in sales for over two decades and this is the first time that I have come across such a genuinely innovative concept. I am delighted to be part of this exciting mobile revolution.”

Dov Moran, modu’s founder and CEO, said: “Such has been the success of modu to date that opening an office in Europe will help us to manage and exploit the unprecedented demand we have experienced since our business launch in February 2008.

“The first European office of modu in Austria will take us to the next level in terms of securing global sales and forging partnerships, helping the modu concept reach its full and exciting potential. modu Austria will be a key member of the modu family as we gear up for commercial availability in our first three territories: Russia, Italy and Israel.”

Mic Wright, News Editor & Joe Minihane, Online News Editor of Stuff.tv recently caught up with modu at The Handset Fashion & Style Congress which took place between the 22nd and 24th of April at The RSA, London. Following the event they wrote an article on modu as well as a hands on with modu video segment.

Take a look at the video segment: modu on Stuff.tv
You can also read about modu in the June issue of Stuff Magazine, page 25 ;) 

Hagit Perry, a Product Manager at modu recently spent a few days at Orange Partner Camp which took place in Faro, Portugal on April 14^{th -} 16^th. The show attracted 400 attendees from over 30 countries. The event consisted of interactive presentations, workshops, sessions and many more networking opportunities.

 I sat down with Hagit upon her return and asked her to answers 5 questions about her role at modu.

I was a programmer in a start-up. I joined the army and became an officer and a team leader of a very interesting system. Afterwards, I was a data integration and business intelligence consultant in many corporate. The customers I worked with were all the cellular carriers in Israel, banks, insurance companies and others. Then I joined modu

2.    Tell us briefly about your position with modu.

As a product manager in modu I manage the marketing requirements both for the hardware and software of modu.

3.    What two websites do you visit frequently and why?

I can’t pick only two…. I’m connected to the internet all the time and visit frequently many different sites. From the mobile and technology field I would pick Engadget and PhoneArena. I visit them frequently since they tend to lead with hot news that are delivered shortly and to the point, so I can be updated quickly without spending time on it.

4.    What has been your biggest professional achievement?

My professional achievements are what lead me to my role at modu. Currently my role as part of the team that is planning modu and the modu ecosystem from the marketing aspect is the biggest professional achievement. There are so many interesting challenges at modu, that I believe I’ll constantly have “biggest professional achievements”.

 5.    What attracted you to working at modu?

I joined at a primary stage of the company when we were only 10 people and the company was about to be established.

When I met Dov and the initial team of the company, we had a conversation on what are the goals we expect for the company. I was amazed on how the goals of the other team members suited my goals and were not only concerned on business or money, but also on very important values, which can be summed to: PEOPLE FIRST, INNOVATION and PASSION. After a short while of being in the team I had the confidence that this excellent team with the platform for the company that Dov created will be able to create a company that will achieve the challenging goals. I was very attracted to the challenges and to working in this team, so when the company was established on February, 2007, I was on board.

I must say that today - one year and a few months later, I see the company and I know my instincts were right

Great instincts indeed! Thanks for sharing with us!

The partner zone on modu has officially launched. Potential partners are invited to register via the website or by following this link directly: modu Partner Zone

modu is already attracting widespread support from leading players in the mobile services, content providers, fashion brands as well as leading consumer electronics companies. The partner zone was developed to offer growth, freedom and boundless possibilities in the world of personal communication.

The largest Israeli tech conference took place on the 13th and 14th of April, TheMarkers Com.vention The event brought out a who’s who of silicon valley such as Robert Scoble, Cathy Brooks, Craig Newmark, Jeff Pulver and many more.

While on their visit to Israel, these guys have set up a blog to post about where they’re going, what they’re doing and share some photos. Check it out Travelinggeeks.com

April 13^th 8:00 – 9:30 The day started with a live social networking breakfast hosted by Jeff Pulver, of www.pulver.com a pioneer in the VoIP industry as well as one of the biggest authorities on social networks such as Facebook.

During the networking breakfast I met with Niv Calderon of www.nivcalderon.com Orli Yakuel of www.blog.go2web20.net as well as Robert Scoble of www.scobleizer.com who were all excited to finally get their hands on modu, take some pictures and get a brief introduction to modu and its ecosystem.

Dan “Digital Dan” Dubno also gave a presentation entitled “must have gadgets” and was nice enough to present modu to the crowd! If you didn’t make it to the event, you can still enjoy the pictures bellow and the vid of Dan briefly showing modu. It’s impressive to see how the online and mobile industry have merged to complement each other in many aspects.

Check out the Full Set!

And here’s the video of Dan showing modu during his presentation.

If you were at the show and want to share your thoughts, post in the comments bellow!

Ok, so it wasn’t exactly the wild, more of a gathering of mobile enthusiasts still, it did cause quite a stir! Meir Deutsch modu’s Director if Markets and Research along with Hila Aviel, Marcom Manager at modu visited the Handy Tech show which I mentioned in yesterday’s post and they brought along modu to demonstrate to the crowd.

The reactions were very enthusiastic as it went around the visitors who rushed over to see it.
modu brings an aspect of uniqueness and change in an industry which is constantly evolving.

I couldn’t make it to the show but I heard it was a very busy one, congrats to the people who made the show possible.  If you didn’t make it to this year’s Handy Tech show, bellow are a few pictures of modu’s appearance at the event.

We were pleased to host Arne Hess Editor of TheUnwired.net at our offices yesterday morning.

Arne came along with a great group of people including Ira, Avishay and John from Handy and Helio Diamant from the Israeli site Pocket PC Freak.

Arne Hess is in town for a show Handy is hosting in Tel-Aviv.

I’ll have to wait for Arne’s official post on the meeting on his site but it’s safe to say modu left a good impression on him; in the meantime, here’s Helio’s post on our meeting at PocketPCFreak (in Hebrew, sorry) as well as some pictures I took, more on his site and still more to come which Arne took along with Dov Moran.

Arne Hess in the modu meeting room.

Helio Diamant General Editor of PocketPCFreak.com and all around great guy!

modu, modu mates and jackets, our pride and joy!