Mobile industry leaders and experts, hundreds of mobile game and app developers, startups, angel investors and venture fund executives from Europe and Silicon Valley will be converging on two conferences: Live Mobile Congress and Silicon Valley Comes to the Baltics (SV2B), which are both to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania this October 11th-12th.
Organizers of the conferences have combined their efforts for the common goal of bringing an even more formidable lineup of technology experts, startups, experienced business people and investors.
The combined attendance of the conferences is expected to reach about 3,500 participants.
Gaming together
"More and more startups are creating technology-related businesses. Game developers share a host of interests with the tech sector at large, so we decided to collaborate and cultivate an opportunity for the broader community of technologists and business folks to mingle,"says Anatoly Ropotov, CEO of Game Insight, the organizer of Live Mobile Congress.
"There are many promising game and app developers in the Baltic region. LMC and SV2B is a great chance for them to find new partners and business contacts."
Speakers from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Unity will share their insights and discuss market trends.
Held for the first time in Lithuania, but for the third year in a row, Live Mobile Congress is one of the few technology events that succeeds in sitting representatives from major platforms together at the same table. Speakers from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Unity will share their experience, insights and discuss latest and future market trends.
The prime focus at Live Mobile Congress this year will be on game and app developers. In the Games Hall, Jens Bussman, Manager Cloud Platform from Google will share his advice on how to successfully adapt games and mobile applications to the Google platform.
Facebook representative Igor Panchenko will reveal the power of Facebook marketing, Ilja Laurs from Nextury Ventures will talk with leading industry experts about monetization and merchandising in games.
Startup Alley will attract some of the best European developers and offer them a chance to present their projects to investors from Europe and Silicon Valley, as well as other participants of Live Mobile Congress.
Game devs can sign up for the Game Jam, and push their skills to the limit in these 24-hour Hackathons put on in partnership with Unity.
Something new
Silicon Valley Comes to the Baltics is an international conference aiming to promote entrepreneurship, and is also being organized for the third time.
This year's theme is "Journey of a Startup." Guest speakers from Silicon Valley will be sharing their know-how on building a business through all its varied and complicated stages: building the team, taking first steps, and, later, seeking investments.
Oliver Nicholas, one of this year's speakers and a representative of Uber, a taxi company which works on the basis of a mobile application, will be visiting Lithuania for the first time. Over the summer, the business was the recipient of an impressive investment of over a billion dollars.
Another visitor is Marvin Liao, a venture partner from 500 Startups, an elite Silicon Valley seed accelerator. This accelerator has already invested in over 800 companies.
Among other speakers, conference guests will also have the chance to meet representatives from Airbnb, the most successful internet-based room and apartment renting platform.
"The Baltic states are going through a renaissance of entrepreneurship. Success stories like those of Vinted, Ask.fm or TransferWise show an immense desire to create and develop new businesses. We see a great interest in tech startups and Silicon Valley, and that is the gap we are trying to fill," says Vytaute Seinauskaite, one of the main organizers of SV2B.
This year, the event will see additional sections: workshops, which were popular with visitors, will be returning to allow conference-goers to meet speakers and experts in break-out sessions, but the conference will also see the introduction of Innovation Town, a space to try out the newest technologies and meet the most innovative companies from around Lithuania and beyond.
You can find out more about Live Mobile Congress 2014 via its website, and more about Silicon Valley Comes to the Baltics 2014 via its website.
