Sofia became the digital capital of Central and Eastern Europe for two days thanks to Webit Congress 2011

The interesting program of Webit Congress 2011 and the opportunity to meet with the top experts in the digital industry attracted more than 5000 people from 45 countries again during the second day of the Congress, October 27. The Main Marketing Stage opened with the presentation of Christian Kunz, Sr. Director Global Advertising of eBay. He shared that online shopping is growing and the successful formula lies in the combination of online and offline commerce. "Consumers are looking for convenience, value and choice. The store is in your pocket if the wallet is in your phone," said Kunz. The next speaker, Przemek Pluta, Regional Manager Central and Eastern Europe for PayPal, spoke about the boundary between online and traditional marketing and about the alternative payment methods. After that, Guillaume Bacuvier, Director of Google's mobile sales and operations for Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa presented the leading trends in the mobile ecosystem and the behavior of consumers and their importance for business.

Andreas Maierhofer, CEO of M-Tel, presented the role of telecoms in the digital economy and the recent trends which indicate that one trillion mobile devices will be connected between each other by 2013. Andreas Maierhofer pointed out that the future of the digital industry is in the cloud services; the technologies like M2M (machine to machine) and the solutions for creating smart cities.

The Chairman of the Board of e-Academy, Honorable Ambassador and Member of the Webit Ambassadors Honorary Board Plamen Rusev delivered a lecture on the topic of "Power to the people – the new marketing." "Social media democratized people’s voice and created a dialogue between the consumer and the brand," said Rusev. "Traditional marketing ends where the digital starts. The form of trust is modified - the traditional media used to be the one giving credibility, while in social media, the trust has to be won."

For the first time within Webit, the StartUp Village took place - an event dedicated to entrepreneurship in the digital industry. It became the meeting place for about 200 representatives of startups and investors in Central and Eastern Europe. Investors shared what the projects they would finance look like, analyzed the current and future trends and outlined their expectations for the development of the digital industry. One of the most interesting lectures was delivered by Ilja Laurs, whose company GetJar was announced as a 'Technology pioneer for 2011" by the World Economic Forum. Time magazine included GetJar in the list of "The ten startups of 2011 that will change life." Among the speakers there were top professionals from Yandex, M-Tel, host.bg, Enterprise Estonia Sillicon Valley and others.

For the first time this year Webit Congress presented DevCamp workshop, which attracted the attention of the top developers and web developers in Central and Eastern Europe and representatives of the world's leading suppliers of platforms and operating systems. During the second day of the event there was a dynamic workshop led by experts from M-Tel. They presented the M-Tel API Platform - a frame that allows external developers (third parties) to use the Telco-infrastructure of the operator for the development of various mobile applications. The workshop began with a session introducing the business model and the frame of the platform to the participants and then it continued with a session on practical usage – life demos of the platform’s features.

During the second day of Webit, the Open Theatres attracted again the participants’ attention, gathering more than 350 people per lecture and about 4000 in total for the whole Congress. Some of the topics were around the cloud technologies, the evolution of the mobile marketing in Bulgaria, the ways to measure the online advertizing effectiveness and among the presenters there were top managers from Yandex, Net Info, Investor.bg, All Channels Communications Group and others.

The Webit Congress 2011 program ended with a formal closing ceremony, where participants and speakers shared their gratitude to the organizers and their willingness to visit again Bulgaria next year especially for the Congress.

Detailed information about the agenda and all the speakers and high-resolution images can be found at the following link: http://www.webit.bg

For more information:

Simeon Polimenov, Event Manager, Webit Congress, phone: + 359 886 606 222, email: simeon@e-acad.eu

Dimitar Sabev, Account Executive, All Channels|PR, phone: + 359 2 434 03 67, mobile: +359 878 610 600, email: dsabev@all-channels.com