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Mobile industry association to be established

04/03/2009

There are only a handful of national mobile associations in the world at present, such as in Sweden and Israel. Now Finland, the spiritual home of the global mobile industry, will be getting its own organisation.

“Finland has a very strong mobile cluster but we are still lacking a national association that represents the whole country,” said Program Director Ismo Rantala. Rantala has been working for six months to gather the expectations of the industry and secure funding. Funding has been promised by various public groups such as Greater Helsinki Promotion, Invest in Finland, Otaniemi Marketing and Technopolis Ventures.

The Finnish Mobile Association will be built upon the existing Mobility@Otaniemi microcluster project. The need has been recognised for some time, and a year ago Technopolis Ventures kicked off the project. Technopolis Ventures is also a founding member of the Finnish Mobile Association.

“It is very important that we have a joint brand,” continues Rantala. “For instance, a joint brand could be used at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.” Finland is the world leader in mobile technology, and it is important for the industry to gain a single voice.

Rantala plans to launch the association by May and hopes about 80 companies will join. The group will build the brand of the Finnish mobile industry, plan participation at industry events and help with networking. This will help further establish Finland as the world leader in mobile technology, benefitting the companies and nation as a whole. Although the group will help with the brand, the global industry is well aware of how important Finland is to the sector.

“There is a joke in the international mobile industry about these strange people at conferences and events,” laughs Rantala. “A newcomer will ask ‘who are these people speaking such a strange language’ and industry veterans will laugh and explain it is the Finnish Mob – Finnish Mobile industry. So we chose finnmob as the domain name for the association.”

Source: Helsinki Times