ETel Launchpad - Invitation to Communications Startups

O'Reilly is proud to announce that in conjunction with Om Malik and GigaOm the first Emerging Telephony Launchpad for new telecoms start-ups is to be held. Lots of access to drinks, food and people should ensure good cheer and an apt launch for some of Telco lands hottest new start ups.

Some back story - Just after the Web 2.0 conference I decided to stick around San Francisco and see if I could catch up with noted telecoms journalist Om Malik. Individually we had both been out the night before and as such were feeling a little, erm, "tired", so we decided to meet for coffee somewhere in the financial district. At one point during the conversation, Om suddenly stops me and says "Hey, I Want to do a launch pad event at ETel!" Having just helped my good friend Rael launch his company on the Web 2.0 launch pad I was instantly sold. Om's main stipulation was "that it has to be fun". A sentiment that I like. Lots. When I returned back to my base in Portland, I duly chased up with my Co-Chair Brady and some of the other OReilly conference team members. Thumbs up were given.

So if you are interested in participating or know someone who should be there, go to our entry form here

http://conferences.oreillynet.com/pub/w/50/launchpad.html

and fill out the details. Whether it be Open source, Software Radio, Mobile, VOIP, Wireless, Mashup, Wi-Max, IM, Jabber , XMPP whatever - as long as it is relevant and more importantly exciting to the ETel audience, do let us know. Do it soon as there are only a few weeks open for entering. All entries will be reviewed by the ETel and GigaOm teams. All winning entries will get to get up on stage and strut their stuff in front of a crowd of journalists, entrepreneurs, hackers and money people. This will be a first year for us and we hope to continue this each year making it a debutantes ball for new ideas in telecoms and of course stay tuned to Radar and the ETel Blog for more tasty morsels as we find them.