Meet top mobile innovators, investors at Techcircle Mobile Entrepreneurship Forum, Delhi

Mobile and mobile Internet are bang in the middle of the most exciting space in Indian technology sector – be it Indian startups scaling up businesses to global level, fighting out large handset makers on home ground or attracting venture capital and private equity investment interest or innovating for the masses and the early tech adopters alike. To bring out the success stories with entrepreneurs sharing insights and investors brainstorming on what's hot about the mobile Internet business, Techcircle is organising the first edition of Mobile Entrepreneurship Forum on Thursday (June 28) at The Grand hotel in Delhi.

The event will capture the key trends and numbers that will define the Indian mobile ecosystem in the next five years in terms of users, products and services. It will also seek to bring out the exciting areas in the non-carrier driven mobile market.

Techcircle Mobile Entrepreneurship Forum 2012 will see speakers like Valerie Rozycki Wagoner (founder & CEO, ZipDial), Shobit Bhargava (head of VAS and data at Vodafone), Rishi Khiani (who has just stepped down as CEO of Times Internet), Badri Sanjeevi (CEO, Mauj Mobile & Mobango), Sandeep Goyal (vice-chairman, the Mogae Group), Anisha Singh (founder & CEO of Mydala), B Vamshi Reddy (CEO & co-founder, Apalya Technologies), Nitish Mittersain (CEO, Nazara Technologies), Vikas Jain (co-founder & director, Micromax) and Mohammad Imthiaz (founder & CEO of Y2CF Digital Media, the maiden venture backed by Bharti-SoftBank joint venture BSB), among others.

The first session would focus on entertainment on mobile, covering opportunities, challenges and learnings for both audio and video formats of entertainment-on-the-go. While Salman Hussain (MD, India & Middle East, Vuclip) and Reddy of Apalya would share their experience of bringing videos to mobiles, Swapnil Shinde (co-founder, Dhingana.com) and Vivek Paul (director – digital, Sony Music) will talk about music as a content bucket on the mobile.

Mohit Bhatnagar of Sequoia Capital, who had previously co-founded a wireless startup and then worked at Bharti Airtel, will deliver the keynote address on the future of mobile entrepreneurship in India.

In the next panel discussion, Wagoner of ZipDial, Imthiaz of Y2CF Digital (which has recently launched a location-based service), Singh of group buying deal site Mydala and Subrat Pani (co-founder and director, One Assist Consumer Solutions) will discuss the strategies and opportunities in connecting the online and the offline worlds via mobile.

The event will see Khiani (former CEO of Times Internet) moderate a session on mobile monetisation and advertising, with panellists like Sanjeevi of Mauj Mobile & Mobango, Goyal of the Mogae Group and Mittersain of Nazara Technologies taking part in the discussion. In addition, they will look at the current state of the market and the models that would work in India besides a status check on premium and banner advertising and what the app companies can do.

The event will also touch upon mobile payment – one of the key areas which will determine how fast mobile Internet can be integrated with the overall Internet infrastructure to make it a business proposition.

As of now, mobile payments are available only through telecom operators. The session will look at what it takes to create the next level of evolution and growth in mobile payment as Indian mobile consumption increases. Plus, it will discuss various payment modes, such as mobile wallets, and what technologies can help improve the way people pay for items. Shashank Joshi (MD, My Mobile Payments), Harinder Takhar (Head, PayTM), Nitin Gupta (vice-president and country manager, PayU India) and Upasana Taku (CEO, Zaakpay) will share their perspectives.

The forum will further highlight the key elements of the mobile business and the changing landscape of the Indian mobile handset market. Dilip Modi (MD, Spice Mobility), S N Rai (co-founder & director, Lava Mobile) and Vikas Jain (co-founder & director, Micromax) will discuss how consumers use mobile in India, the evolving trends and what consumers need at this point of time.

For more information on the event and to register, click here.