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MEFFYS 2023

Special Award: Personal Contribution to the Ecosystem

Who has been a champion for the Mobile Ecosystem?

Andreas Constantinides

MoreThan160 Ltd

The Importance of Business Messaging Training

Andreas Constantinides is the founder of the Business Messaging Academy, a training Institution that provides valuable information, update and training to the whole mobile and business messaging ecosystem.

Via valuable, sophisticated, and interactive seminars, the MoreThan160 Academy covers the training gap in our Industry, providing all kinds of knowledge to SMS & Messaging Executives.

Junior, Medior, and Senior level professionals have the chance to be trained in all aspects of business messaging such as Sales, Procurement, Products, Operations, and Technical both for Wholesale & Enterprise messaging.

The Tutors team of MoreThan160 Academy is combined by the most valuable Professional executives from all fields of Business Messaging, in general, with more than 15 years of experience in the industry, and share their knowledge and provide high-standard training to participants around the globe.

This is why we suggest Andreas Constantinides, Head of MoreThan160 as a Nominee at MEF Awards 2023 in the category PERSONAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE MOBILE ECOSYSTEM.

Arun Dehiri

Red Dawn Consulting

Please enjoy my video submission for Personal Contribution to the Mobile Ecosystem 2023, along with the show real teaser.

My 30 year career has been dedicated to the global mobile ecosystem. It was whilst qualifying as a chartered accountant out of PWC’s media sector that I realised my calling in life was in the communications industry.  I worked in the strategy teams at Sky and Orange where I helped launch Orange Switzerland. Since then I’ve been protecting consumer interests by advising global leaders on digital growth strategies.

Just a few achievement highlights…As COO at ministry of sound I pioneered a mobile music service. For Etisalat I developed a first of its kind sub-brand for the low income called Five Sunrise – (named after Arun which translated means Sunrise, or Dawn). As CCO at Teleena in Netherlands, I helped pivot the business into an IoT platform, which then sold to Tata. I chaired the International MVNO Association and won Carrier Communities award for The Most Influential and Inspirational Wholesale Executive. I’ve also worked on the world’s largest number of MVNO projects.

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Achievements:

• Chair of the International MVNO Association

• Executive Board member of Analysys Mason

• Winner of Carrier Communities award of ‘The Most Influential and Inspirational Wholesale executive Award’

• Chief Commercial Officer at Teleena (mobile services enabler) in Netherlands which was sold to Tata

• Pioneered a hugely successful sub-brand for Etisalat ‘Five Sunrise’ – taken after my name Arun which translates to dawn, or sunrise

• Commercial director at Colt bringing mobility to the fixed business

• Chief Operating Officer at Ministry of Sound responsible for delivering an innovative mobile proposition

• Pioneered telematics solution for General Motors

• The world’s largest number of wholesale MVNO agreements behind Virgin, Tesco, Disney, Ono, Wireless Logic

• Chaired, presented and judged awards at many mobile industry forums

…I am also a regular speaker and judge for major forums

My core values centre around 3 main criteria when a developing service:

1. Does it support a ‘social good’

2. Is a service sustainable- from an environmental and business model perspective.

3. Does it keeping us safe. We need to take more care to protect the young and support the vulnerable.

My contributions centre around 3 themes:

Firstly, Regulation. I work with global regulators to protect consumer interests and stimulate competition. I’ve spent most of this year developing a ground-breaking regulatory framework to stimulate the digital economy in Qatar. I’ve also advised on mergers such as BT/EE, Sprint/T-Mobile, Virgin/O2

Second, developing innovations. Examples include pioneering disruptive pricing concepts such as an international arbitrage model for Tier 1 operators, building sub-brands for niche segments for the likes of  Verizon, and this year a totally unique loyalty concept combining mobile with fintech to reward social good.

Thirdly Coming back to MVNOs. The business plans and airtime agreements I worked on for Tesco and Virgin back in 1999 have been used as a global benchmark for hundreds of MVNOs. The impact of my work in the mobile ecosystem can be seen in M&A deals and massive valuations. Extending to IoT, the airtime agreements recently negotiated for Wireless Logic contributed to it’s valuation to over €1bn

My team and I have evolved the MVNO model to encapsulate a new breed of innovators relying on connectivity.

We created a group including OTTs, IoTs, and now Metaverse businesses under the umbrella of Mobile Innovators Over Networks … or MIONs. This unleashes potential from networks extending wholesale model which we learned from MVNOs.

Thank you for your vote!

Ashutosh Agrawal

Globe Teleservices

With the evolution of new-age telecom companies and solutions providers, the landscape of smart communications is changing with newer and more innovative trends emerging from all corners of the world. Globe Teleservices has invested and strived to meet the ever-changing requirements of telcos and end-users, taking advantage of collaboration opportunities in the technology and services spaces.

Ashutosh Agrawal, (CMD, GTS) had invested in his relationships and drove to pick innovators and entrepreneurs, forging alliances with unique entities serving the telecom domain, including sectors in fraud management, customer engagement, video messaging, consent management, financial technology, robotic process automation, and others.

He has also directed his efforts towards the social marketing and engagement giant Eywamedia and leveraged their multi-channel platform to transform and deliver omnichannel CPaaS communications, fueled with the support of GTS Techlabs.

He is the upcoming face of the consent management and authentication services industry for enterprises and telcos, showcasing limitless growth potential.

Brian Kelly

Openmind Networks

Brian is responsible for the overall technical strategy at Openmind, driving innovation for existing and new product development. Brian has a wealth of experience from the messaging industry. While at LogicaCMG in the late 90’s early 2000’s, Brian was responsible for increasing the performance of the original Telepath SMSC architecture by two orders of magnitude and for designing and implementing their next generation messaging architecture for both SMS and MMS (Picasso). Brian has continued his innovation and messaging infrastructure development as CTO at Openmind for the past two decades and continues to drive new development in messaging fraud prevention and CPaaS. Responsible for tech that delivers over 1 billion messages every day Brian is one of the original architects of SMS messaging but continues to reinvent the genre for a 5G era.

Carlos Aragon

Mavenir

Carlos has been devoted to driving RCS Business Messaging adoption with MEF not just for 2022 but over many years, participating in several technology and marketing groups. Leading panels and discussions and evangelizing omni-channel customer engagement.
His bold support for the technology and encouragement to brands and operators to launch the technology is well known by the ecosystem members. He is not afraid to put himself out there and fiercely drive members to action: from his “Apple will not support RCS, get over it!” push to his “Just Do It” initiative during the MEF CONNECTS USA event in September.
If this award is about personal contribution, what better way to provide it than by contributing his own person as the billboard!

Catherine Maguire

BT

Catherine is an incredible advocate for RCS and is always front and centre promoting its many benefits. With an open and knowledgeable mindset she has been a driving force for this rich communication channel.

Catherine has been instrumental in helping advance the RCS Business Messaging within the UK and beyond. Her advocacy for RCS within the mobile ecosystem is well-known, as she’s a constant champion of the channel at MEF events. In 2022, she helped bring together multiple operators to collectively streamline RCS’ go-to-market in the UK which has led to a healthier ecosystem for brands and their messaging partners. Finally, Catherine’s willingness to introduce the channel outside of the mobile ecosystem to leading marketing & advertising agencies at renowned events such as MADFest have laid the groundwork for RCS to truly capture new brand adopters, use cases, and ultimately budgets that have historically been out of touch for the messaging industry.

Cyrille Thivat

Telecoming

Cyrille Thivat is Telecoming’s Chief Executive Officer. He has been working in the mobile industry for more than 20 years. During the last 15, he has driven the leading company in the mobile monetization industry.

Cyrille has been a key advocate of the mobile industry and has successfully placed direct carrier billing among the most influential brands in the sports world. Cyrille is a reference in the mobile industry. Telecoming has closed exclusive licensing agreements with Real Madrid, PSG, Anderlecht, Benfica, ASEC Mimosas and EFC, thanks to Cyrille’s dedication and purpose.

He is a human professional who has dedicated his life to promoting and developing the mobile ecosystem and the participation of all groups in this new economy.

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Telecoming is today a sportech company specializing in developing and distributing mobile entertainment experiences. We have been deploying monetization technologies in partnership with telcos since 2008 and are currently present in 27 countries. Our portfolio now includes the official licenses of the leading soccer clubs in Europe and Africa and the main competitions of 13 sports disciplines.

Cyrille is a passionate expert of the digital era, able to go beyond the traditional model and imagine infinite possibilities for the mobile entertainment industry. He is also a pioneer ahead in the trend of dual-screen consumption. Cyrille Thivat has always been committed to creativity, teamwork and innovation. Based on these values, he has built Telecoming, a player in the monetization sector that is very different from others. He has made a company that leads the market because it understands the user and because its team is brave enough to take risks with new projects. Cyrille transmits confidence internally and externally. He inspires Telecoming professionals to be better and brands to trust Telecoming as a partner for its capacity to create value and innovation.

Recently, Cyrille introduced the term known worldwide as Subscronomics to illustrate the new movement of a consolidated subscription economy. He is well- versed in subscription-based businesses and understands how technology helps the model. He has pushed hard to communicate it, and his voice has impacted the entire society.

Cyrille’s contribution to the mobile industry is a life committed with the creation, defense and development of an ecosystem able to generate wealth, knowledge and well-being throughout the world.

Ehsan Ahmadi

VOX Solutions

Ehsan is the CEO & Founder of VOX Solutions, with 20+ years of experience in Technology. He focused on leveraging machine learning into optimizing the messaging world, focusing on the safety, efficiency and CX of authentication processes. VOX Solutions is a leader in A2P SMS monetization, a pioneer on addressing Flash Calling (A2P Voice) and a company to focus on mitigating artificial traffic, a growing problem.  

As per Ehsan’s vision, VOX Solutions focuses on constantly improving its best in class monetization and antifraud services to help all industry players by ensuring SMS remains the trusted channel it currently is. To that end, VOX Solutions won for several years in the row titles as:

– Best Antifraud Innovation at the Global Carrier Awards

– Best Personal Data & Identity – A2P Voice Monetization Solution at Meffys

– Best Flash Call Authentication Solution at Juniper Awards

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This is all done with Ehsan’s high involvement in product development and active connection to global clients and industry players, helping our ecosystem understand the complex challenges it faces. To that end, Ehsan actively contributes to increasing awareness in the telecom industry of different challenges and threats and how to solve them through appropriate technology:

•     Ehsan is a thought leader & publishes multiple articles around high interest topics such as: Fraud, SMS trashing, Artificial traffic inflation, increasing trend on Flash Calls and how to address it with tailored strategies. https://www.voxcarrier.com/category/ceo-blog/

•     To our knowledge, Ehsan was the first person to raise the challenge that flash calling poses to MNOs, the issue that such services currently go unbilled and the need for appropriate technology. Seeing how big of a challenge this is, he also then lead our Product Development division to develop the first & only solution in the market to block or monetize A2P Voice traffic.

•     Ehsan was one of the very few to raise ask everybody to pay attention to the high  volume of SPAM an artificial traffic in the market (almost 2 years ago). To that end, he lead VOX Solutions to developing the first antispam module on the market.

•     He and his group of companies have been actively involved in the knowledge sharing and development of MEF, along its entire member base. They have hosted multiple webinars with the highest audience in MEF, constantly leveraging their network of customers and collaborators, while also bringing the perspective of research companies such as Juniper or Mobilesquared, for addressing issues and debate from all relevant perspectives.

Igor Skutsenya

LANCK Telecom

Igor Skutsenya is the Senior Business Development Manager at LANCK Telecom, a tier-1 international Voice and SMS Carrier. He cares deeply about the sustainability of the mobile ecosystem and the fight against telecom fraud. Igor spoke at numerous MEF webinars on Voice and SMS anti-fraud, and the issue of Flash Calling. His expertise is backed by 9+ years of experience in the telecom industry, working in management, business development, finance & international initiatives. As an active public speaker in fraud management and RCS, Igor has presented projects at GCCM CIS, CC-Webinar.Live, Telecoms World, GSMA FASG, CFCA and others.

Inderpal Singh Mumick, Ph. D

Dotgo

Inderpal Mumick and his team have played a pivotal role in advancing RCS Business Messaging across the globe. He is a leading expert and advocate of RCS, contributing to building sustainable commercial and technical frameworks for RCS adoption and deployment globally, while growing the ecosystem through initiatives with industry bodies and partners.

Inderpal co-founded Dotgo, and in a few short years, Dotgo started contributing to the growth of RCS business messaging, with several industry firsts – the first country wide deployment of RCS across all carriers, the first RCS launches in Africa and India,  the first RBM Hub to make it possible to deliver RCS to any user globally, and the award winning RichOTP solution to deliver OTPs over RCS.  Inderpal continues to lead Dotgo after its acquisition by Gupshup, as it continues to have an oversized impact on the entire RCS messaging industry.

Inderpal is very willing and active in sharing his knowledge and expertise in RCS and messaging with others. He and his team have made crucial contributions to many standardization efforts at both GSMA and MEF, including the Verification Framework, and the Commercial Models and Directory initiatives at MEF, and to GSMA’s RCS Verification Authority API that was published last year.

A serial entrepreneur, Inderpal received a Bachelor degree in CS from IIT Delhi, where he was awarded the President’s Gold Medal; and a Ph.D. in CS from Stanford University.  He is a Distinguished Engineer and a Distinguished Member of ACM.

Jack Wraith MBE (Deceased)

The Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum Ltd

Jack Wraith MBE, who sadly passed away early in January, was the leading light, the guide and the inspiration behind The Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum (TUFF) from its earliest days.

His calm, knowledgeable, even-handed management style brought together members of a highly competitive industry, national government and law enforcement agencies to tackle mobile phone fraud and crime, promoting information-sharing across diverse groups (where there had been very little before), for the benefit of all, ensuring that consumers were better protected through initiatives like the blocking of stolen mobile phones across all UK networks and a national database to address telecommunications crime.

Without Jack’s drive, dedication, advice and leadership, the industry, government and law enforcement might have taken many more years to work together collaboratively.  His, and TUFF’s, influence are still evident across the industry, in many of the UK regulatory bodies and in a number of trade associations.

A true gentleman, held in very high esteem by his peers, who gave much of his working life to TUFF, he will be sadly missed.

For this and for making the mobile ecosystem a safer place he is most worthy of posthumous recognition for his personal contribution.

Kev Dawson

PM Connect

PM have been pioneers in delivering global brands to consumers since 2012, delivering access to the worlds largest brands and services through the power of mobile reach, advertising, monetisation and service delivery.  A mobile centric example of setting standards of availability in tandem with other means for digital distribution.

Following a successful 22 years working at both the Carrier and payment layers of the value chain, Kev Dawson joined PM Connect as Group Chief Executive Officer in March 2022.  Driven by a personal ambition to lead the next evolution of PMC and the digital distribution marketplace on a truly global scale, Kev has evolved and engaged an executive team to deliver on its biggest challenge yet…  A strategic pivot to embrace a truly universal approach to content distribution for brands, deliver the best offerings on the planet within the continent of Africa – creating uncompromising offerings with unparalleled access, availability, affordability and sustainability.  Developing an eco system that works for every mobile carrier, the largest global brands as well as best serving the immense consumer demand in Africa.

A monumental triple win objective to work to.  Nearly 12 months in, this being delivered on and a compelling use case example that demonstrates the real value the full mobile eco-system can bring to developing markets without compromises!

Rahul Gupta

BNG Advanced Mobile Solution

Nominated for his vision with which he started BNG as a VAS services organization which now has evolved into a truly multi-dimensional organization operating in Voice VAS, Digital Services, CVM and other platforms catering to Telco and Enterprise customers.

The company was founded by two young entrepreneurs Rahul Gupta and Karthik Shankar in 2011.

The company began as a single product with Magic Voice over 10 years ago, has now evolved into something completely different altogether. Magic Voice is the most exciting way of talking to your friends & families in super fun voices.

Our other champion product that helped telecom operators to monetize over 40% of calls which failed on the network is the Incomplete call advertising platform (ICP).

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These services are only possible when you have an eye on innovation and an ear on the ground to listen to customers’ feedback which helped us to come out with products and services to serve the public better.

The new buzzword in the industry, Mobile Gaming, helps operators to open up a new revenue stream and our cutting-edge gaming platform, MobiBattle, enables any popular game to be converted into a multiplayer game and played with friends.

BNG platforms like AdTech, Call Completion, Fraud Control Solution, Digital SDP and state of art CVM solutions have proven their value in multiple Telecom networks. Our solutions are helping telcos around the world achieve healthy revenue growth with a clear focus on a high level of Customer Experience. We align our objectives with those of the telcos whether it ranges from user engagement to NPS to ARPU increase.

In a journey now spanning over 10 years, BNG works with more than 110+ Telcos in 80 countries, this itself is a testimony of our extreme customer focussed approach in creating solutions which have proven their value with such a large customer base. From Voice to Rich Media to truly next-generation gaming to Enterprise solutions, the technology spread of BNG Advanced Mobile Solutions Pvt Ltd. knows no bounds.

We at BNG believe in innovation and bringing in industry-first products and services in the market that helps operators to uplift the ARPU globally.

Vladimir Smal

LANCK Telecom

Vladimir Smal is the Head of Sales & Procurement, Global Messaging at LANCK Telecom, a tier-1 international Voice and SMS Carrier. Having worked at the company for 14 years, he has gained deep expertise in Voice, SMS, Anti-fraud and Mobile solutions. Vladimir was promoted to his current position after proving himself as a successful team leader in the Voice Sales for Middle East, Africa & Asia markets. Under his leadership, the SMS traffic terminated by LANCK Telecom increased from 1 to 3B+ within 3 years, while Messaging revenue growth accounted for more than 500% in the same period. It is not a coincidence that in 2021 & 2022 LANCK Telecom was named by ROCCO Research as one of 6 Tier-1 A2P SMS Vendors. Since LANCK Telecom joined MEF 3 years ago, Vladimir has been the key speaker at multiple MEF panels and events. He leads the discussion on SMS fraud prevention and the new threat of A2P SMS Artificial Traffic Generation.

MEFFYS 2023

Personal Contribution to the Mobile Ecosystem

Voting ended! The winners will be announced at the MEFFYS Ceremory in Barcelona, 27th February

Personal Data & Identity

What has been the best innovation in the area of Authentication in the past 12 months?

Enterprise Communications

What has been the most impactful Omnichannel enterprise comms campaign this year?

Content & Advertising

What has been the most innovative content or advertising service for mobile users in 2021?

Global Connectivity

What has been the most innovative solution for connectivity or global roaming this year?

Mobile IoT

What has been the most impactful use case of an IoT solution across 2021?

Payments

What has been the most innovative Mobile Payment service showcasing usability and security?

Personal Contribution to the Mobile Ecosystem

Who has been a champion for the Mobile Ecosystem?

The MEFFYS 2023 @ MWC Barcelona

The 18th Annual MEFFYS Awards will be held in Barcelona with the winners of 7 categories announced LIVE on the night. The glitz, the glamour, the red carpet – it is once again time to scrutinise the latest ideas and trends across the mobile ecosystem.

MEF