GSMA wins conference award for App Planet

The GSMA announced that it was awarded the prize for “Best Development of an Association Event” at the inaugural Conference Awards, which were held June 25th in London.  The GSMA was recognised for App Planet, its developer-focused “event within an event”, which was launched at the 2010 Mobile World Congress. 

“App Planet was a resounding success in its debut at the Mobile World Congress in February, and it’s extremely gratifying to receive this industry recognition,” commented Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer, GSMA. “We continue to advance App Planet with the addition of new components that will strengthen the value proposition for mobile application developers and will also attract new audiences to the event.”

Designed to bring together the many critical elements of the broad mobile application ecosystem together in one location, App Planet attracted more than 20,000 visitors and overall, more than 6,000 developers attended Mobile World Congress 2010.  App Planet 2010 featured application developer conferences (ADCs) hosted by Google, Motorola, RIM, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone and Wireless Industry Partnership (WIP), as well as an interactive exhibition with more than 120 exhibiting companies.  App Planet also offered the App Lounge for networking and business development activities; a dedicated, day-long conference programme on industry trends in mobile applications; and the App Garage, which showcased cutting-edge GSMA initiatives in the mobile applications space. 

More than 120 entries were submitted for the 16 Conference Award categories and 19 judges had the difficult task of assessing the winners. The winners came from all types of conference organisers – large and small, pure conference companies, media companies and associations, reflecting the depth and breadth of the industry.

In selecting the GSMA for the award, the judging panel considered criteria such as:

• Changes made on previous years which have impacted on performance
• Initiatives to attract delegates who have not previously attended the event
• The development of creative sponsorship packages that attract sponsors and meet their marketing and corporate objectives
• Key partnerships with 3rd parties
• Outstanding results and feedback and over-achieving on targets

“The Conference Awards were created to recognise and reward excellence, showcase innovation and provide a quality benchmark for individuals, teams and companies in the conference industry,” commented Claire Wormsley, co-founder of the Conference Awards.  “The high quality of the entries and the enthusiasm for the awards has demonstrated the keenness of the industry to come together, network with colleagues and competitors and applaud increasing professionalism and leadership in the industry.”