Mobile Web West Africa 2012 was a blast and Mobile Monday was glad to be part of this great event. If you missed the event, don’t worry.  Techloy and otekbits have you covered.

Head over to their blogs to re-live the event. You will be glad you did .

So, what’s happening at MoMo this Monday? It is an Open Day? Yes…you have asked for it and we have listened. Are you working on a service / product / app or have just launched your services / products / apps in the last few months? Then, you don’t want to miss this. We are giving you an opportunity to present you service / product / app and get candid feedback from the tech. community.

If you have something to present, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss. To qualify to participate on the day, send the information below to info[at]momonigeria.org and we will revert to you.

• Name
• Contact number / email
• name of service / product / app
• website address (if any)

Bogobiri House - 9 Maitama Sule Street
South-West Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
Monday, April 30, 2012 at 5:30 PM

Visit the Mobile Monday event page for more details. See you on in the evening!

The attention of most businesses are shifting to mobile. If you have a service and it is not available on the mobile, you have not started. But there has been one major challenge that is common to either a developer or tech. entrepreneur and that is the issue of payment. No matter how good your service is, if people are finding it hard to pay for it, you can not see the traction you expect.

March 2012 Mobile Monday event is therefore dedicated to “Mobile Payment”. We are having the team from Qik Qik in the house to share their experience on what will work and how developers and tech. entrepreneurs can take advantage of this technology.

Bogobiri House, 9 Maitama Sule Street
South-West Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria
Monday, March 26, 2012 at 5:30 PM
Please Register in Advance Here

We will also be having Emmanuel Okoegwala of Mobile Money Africa in the house to answer any question you may have about Mobile Money and Mobile Payment in Nigeria.

It is the time of the month again that we meet to discuss one of the technology trends in the world. This month is not different. The February event will be focusing on Location Based Services and how it affects our lives and businesses. Please be sure to Register in Advance Here.

Bogobiri House
9 Maitama Sule Street, South-West Ikoyi
Lagos, Nigeria
Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 5:30 PM

We have teams from VConnect, Mocality and TimbaObjects on ground and they will be shedding more light on the following:

1. What is “Location Based Services”?
2. What are the uses of LBS?
3. LBS and your daily life & Business
4. LBS offerings in Nigeria

Location-based services (LBSes) have been blossoming – both in functionality and in number of users – over the past several years. And Nigeria has had its share of this. Also, there has been many questions in the mind of people. You definitely don’t want to miss this, we look forward to see you there!

Have you always wanted to start a technology business and don’t know how to go about this, then you don’t want to miss the January 2012 MoMo event. The knowledge required to start and run a technology business is not written in any training school syllabus nor most textbooks. It is more of a culture and language that we have evolved with over the years.

January 2012 MoMo meet-up is therefore setup to help you learn the basics of what you need to do on this journey. We will have business owners on ground to share their experiences on starting a technology business in Nigeria. They will also be available to answer all questions that you may have.

This is a follow-up to the last event and will be an interactive session where you can network, learn and ask questions on everything you want to know. Our panelists will try to answer as many questions as possible. Please Register for the event here.

Are you the mobile / internet enthusiast out there who believes / plays in the industry but doesn’t fully understand the language? You are a potential investor and you know there are prospects in this industry but you just don't understand most of the basics.

You are probably student who has many questions on how to become a mobile/internet entrepreneur? Or you are a professional who is looking at a career change or business in our industry but you have been finding it difficult to understand the basics on the internet and mobile business.

The knowledge required to get techie is not written in any training school syllabus nor most textbooks. It is more of a culture and language that we have evolved with over the years.

October MoMo meet-up is therefore setup to help you on this journey. It will be an interactive session where you can network, learn and ask kind of questions on what doesn’t make sense to you in the mobile internet industry. Our panelists will try to answer as many questions as possible and some of these will include:

• Cloud Computing
• Start a technology business
• relevance of mobile applications to my business
• How to recognize a good developer
• + The ones on your mind!

And YES! Our panelists will be answering all of them in a very interactive and networking free settings.

To register for the event, visit MoMo Nigeria event page. Come and get more Techie!

The tickets for August 2011 MoMo meet-up are now available. The theme of this month’s event is “Meet The Players” and the focus is to showcase the key players in the Nigeria Mobile Ecosystem. The event will take place on Monday, 29 August 2011 and the details of the venue will be confirmed shortly.

Three (3)  main players already confirmed their availability for the event and these are Microsoft, MTN and Nokia. These 3 companies will be speaking on their services, product offerings and plans for the Nigeria Mobile Ecosystem.

To register for this event, kindly visit http://meetdplayers.eventbrite.com/

Update:
This event has been shifted by a week. It will now take place on Monday, 05 September 2011. Sorry for the inconveniences.

Whenever I have opportunity of speaking with Startup founders, the first thing on the agenda is always the issue of  funding. Many people believe that the main reason why we don’t see many thriving businesses in Nigeria is lack of funding. While this may be true, there are many other reasons. One other reason I have noticed among Nigeria Startups is lack of enough information about their industry. Most people assume that things will take shape as long as they have access to the funding they need. But things are becoming clearer now.

Pitch Monday:

As part of its plan to ensure that Startups get the exposure they deserve and also access to funding, the Mobile Monday Nigeria team held Pitch Monday on 25 July 2011. Pitch Monday brought together about 13 Angel investors, Seed stage investors, and Venture Capitals. 13 Startups were given few minutes to pitch their services / solutions for investment. While some of these Startups show full understanding of their business, competitors and the industry, many still have a lot of work to do as regards pitching for investments. I will be using this write-up to highlight some of the Startups that pitched at the event.

The Startups:

As I stated above, there were pitched from 13 different Startups and they ranged from games to mobile solutions. Some of these Startups were products of Garage48 and Tech-In Series.

• MyCash:  MyCash is a mobile application that enables users to keep track of their spending daily. A user will be able to create expense lists and share the list with a third party. Users will also be allowed to synchronise their account with the MyCash server and view reports of their spending habits and tips on how to save. This is currently in Alpha phase and the service is expected to be live shortly.
• Resident Report: Residents Report – RR® – is a Social Innovation application that “puts the city in your hands. The company wants to create a platform that allows citizens/residents to decide the destiny of their communities and gets public service agencies to do their jobs accountably. The RR platform will help residents bring their everyday neighbourhood concerns into the light. It turns citizen complainers into neighborhood fixers and it gives people all the tools they need to not only spot problems but get government to correct them in a prompt, cost-effective manner. RR will be available  both as mobile & web apps.
• OurPrayerBox: Have you always wished you had access to a platform that allows you to connect with people that share the same religion belief as you? Are you looking for prayer partners and it seems nobody is available? Are you a pastor or imam and looking for a platform to engage your congregation in prayers? Then, OurPrayerBox is your answer. The company seeks to create a solution  that will help you share prayer points.
• mPower: mPower is MobilityNigeria’s initiative to push low-end smartphones into the hands of tens of millions of Nigerians who have never had access to the Internet. Through mPower, the company seeks to sell sub-N20,000 smartphones and train people around the country to activate and use mobile Internet on those devices.
• Traffic.com.ng: The service is aimed primarily at helping Lagosians reduce stress and the time they spend on the road moving from one point to another. User will get access to up-to-the-minute traffic status / information within the state. The company is currently using a crowdsourcing model to gather the traffic information in different areas in the state and this is being done on a voluntarily basis. The data is available across various platforms: mobile, web and SMS.

The Sponsors:

Pitch Monday was sponsored by Dealfish Nigeria while Mobitel Nigeria provided free internet access for all participants. Dealfish is a leading free classifieds site where you can find ads from your neighbourhood. The company focuses on ease of use and up-to-date ads. Mobitel, on the the hand, is the pioneer provider of real broadband service in Nigeria with speed starting at 1MB and with capacity to hit 100Mbps for Homes and Offices. Mobitel differentiates on consistency and reliability of speed compared to the current segment leaders.

This post originally appeared at www.otekbits.com

Do you have a startup idea? Join us at this month’s edition of Mobile Monday as we open the floor for you to pitch investors that will be present. First you need to register to attend the event, then fill the form below if you have an idea you want to pitch.

Get your pitch slides ready as we are set to host yet another Mobile Monday but with focus on Startup funding. Come July 25th we will be hosting brilliant startup ideas who are ready to pitch investors with money to fund the ideas. We will have Venture Capitals and Angel investors present.

Theme: Pitch Monday; ideas meet an Angel!

Venue: Terra Kulture

Plot 1376, Tiamiyu Savage, Off Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, Lagos

Date: 25th July 2010

Time: 5:00pm (GMT+1) If you have a pitch, kindly fill the startup form here. Sponsored By: 

The Mobile Monday June 2011 meet-up was a blast. This event has generated positive buzz in the industry since last night and now many people look forward to the July 2011 meet-up. The event took place on in Lagos on 20 June 2011 at Roberts Café, Lagos.

The focus of the meet-up was “Mobile Applications Platforms” and we had speakers from Nokia and Fasmicro who shed more light on their different platforms, their market penetration and what they have to offer developers.

Mr. Praveen Sheety (from Nokia) talked extensively on the Nokia’s devices and the market penetration in Africa. He also explained the Nokia’s developer platform and how Nigerian developers can take advantage to showcase their works. He cited example of a Nigerian developers who has many apps on the Ovi store. The apps are not only being downloaded in 55 countries, the developer is also making money from his apps. At the end of his presentation, he showed people present how to register as a publisher on the Nokia platform. If you missed the event, do visit Forum Nokia for more details.

The second presentation was made by the team from Fasmicro, the brain behind Ovim tablet. The MD of Fasmicro used the platform to discuss his company’s product and services including mobile apps development on Android platform, training and consulting. He also talked about the Fasmicro Android app store and what it has to offer the Nigerian developers.

Key highlight of the evening was the talk by the legal professionals in the house. The lawyers talked about patent, copyright, trademark and registering your company. The lawyers also talked about why every developer needs to operate a business entity and also why protection of their intellectual property is very important. It is not enough to have a good idea and execute it, developers now need to understand how to turn their software into a thriving business.

If you missed this event, July meet-up is definitely something that you don’t want to miss. We will be having investors in the house and start-ups will be given opportunity to pitch their idea for investment. Watch this space for more information.

NB: This post originally appeared at Otekbits. Thanks to the @otekbits team for allowing us to use this on the Mobile Monday Nigeria website.

If you are a mobile developer or interested in mobile technology, it’s time for another interesting time for Mobile Monday, June edition. The focus this time will be on Mobile applications platforms and there will be Lawyers and Platform companies on ground. It will also be an interesting time to network with other stakeholders in the industry. If you have an interesting app to showcase to attendees, it’s also a good platform to get a review of your product. Register Here.

Details

• Event: MoMo Nigeria June Meetup
• Date: Monday, June 20, 2011
• Time: 5:30 – 8pm
• Venue: Robert’s (Brown’s) Cafe, V/I
• Theme: Mobile applications platforms