The power of MobileMonday

Back a year ago, we had our first MobileMonday Tel Aviv event. If you're in the mobile business you probably know what MobileMonday (MoMo) is, but in case you have been living in a cave, it's an international non-profit organization that has presence in 70+ cities around the world. The main activity of MoMo is holding monthly events in Mondays, the events usually include sessions on a certain theme inside the mobile world, and a lot of networking.

It has been around since 2000 in Finland where it originated from but became a worldwide phenomenon starting at 2004 and it is still growing rapidly these days.

I saw MoMo events while I was travelling in Europe and the US and thought to myself that this is something we simply have to import to Israel, which is not only rich in web 2.0 startups, but also in mobile startups, as well as several mobile "Giants" such as Comverse and Amdocs. Also, you can hear so much Hebrew at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, that it should be titled as an official congress language...

And the funny thing is, I used to meet my Israeli colleagues from the mobile space - in Barcelona... There was simply no other format for us to meet here... So I decided to act up and after receiving the Finnish MoMo's blessing, I started forming MobileMonday Tel Aviv. It snowballed quite fast: My call for volunteers to join the organizing team was answered with some great people - and after we had a team, I went on to recruit sponsors - which also proved as quite an easy task. Some already heard of MoMo, others didn't hear but liked the idea - and then we had a liftoff...

Since then we had already 9 successful events, most with around 120-150 attendees, and tomorrow we celebrate our first anniversary and tenth event.

Another important thing is that I got to know some great people, founders and organizers of other MoMo chapters around the world. The MoMo community is very diverse, people joined this family each for his own reason, and managing it each with their own style - but in the end we all have in common enthusiasm for everything mobile, for people and events and also for staying connected both in the local and global levels.

This community is a great driver of the industry, and I am very glad to be a part of it, so if you're in town - come and celebrate with us (event details). Long live MobileMonday!