Last week, OneRedmond members traveled to Barcelona, Spain, with the Washington Interactive Network (WIN), to attend the Mobile World Congress (MWC).
Bart Phillips, CEO for OneRedmond, said there were two purposes to the trip. The first was to support the 19 Washington companies that were attending the show to expand their businesses. The second purpose of the trip was to promote Redmond and the greater Puget Sound region as an essential location for those in the gaming industry.
OneRedmond is part of WIN, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote, nurture and grow the interactive media (gaming) industry cluster in Washington. According to its website, “by fostering a community around the industry cluster, WIN has helped to create more, high-quality jobs in the region.”
Phillips said at the MWC, they were part of a booth representing the state, under the Department of Commerce’s “Choose Washington” brand. In addition to OneRedmond, all 19 of the businesses they traveled with were also part of the booth. Phillips said they helped the small companies line up appointments with other vendors to discuss their business.
“Their schedules were packed,” he said.
One of those businesses attending MWC was Codeproof, a Redmond-based technology startup that provides a platform for companies to protect their data on employee-owned devices if the devices are lost or stolen.
Founder and CEO Satish Shetty said he attended the conference to promote his business internationally and meet customers. Since Codeproof is an online business, he said he really enjoyed being able to meet with people in person and one-on-one.
“That’s really helpful,” he said.
Shetty said he met with nine companies and was able to generate some leads. He was also able to connect with the other Washington companies in the Choose Washington booth — something he wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, despite being in the same state.
“We had a good time,” Shetty said.
In addition to meeting with people, Shetty said he visited other booths at the conference.
MWC featured more than 1,900 companies and Phillips said about 95,000 people attended. In addition to smaller businesses such as Shetty’s Codeproof, big names in the tech world such as Redmond-based Microsoft Corp., Nokia and Ericsson were represented, as well. The conference also featured talks and workshops people could attend.
“It’s a huge deal,” Phillips said.
This trip, which he said was successful, was the first of its kind for OneRedmond but it won’t be the last. Phillips said they plan to attend more events like MWC to support local companies and promote Redmond and the surrounding region.
Next on the horizon for OneRedmond is Asia — either China in July or Japan in September — although Phillips said they are not sure on the location yet.
