Sessions at Over the Air 2011 on Saturday 1st October

Assanka has spent the last 18 months in the thick of the publishing industry's rush for mobile, arguing for web standards, and producing web apps that prove that rich user experiences are not the exclusive preserve of device specific native apps. We recently built and launched the new mobile web app for the Financial Times, which became the world's first major news publisher to deliver an all HTML5 app at app.ft.com.

At the same time, Apple (slightly) relaxed their rules on publishers charging for subscription content via the app store. But the tide may already be turning against native, platform specific apps, as publishers rediscover the benefits of universal, open web standards

We'll dig into the technical challenges of scroll behaviour, gesture detection, animated panels, local databases and local storage, as well as solving problems of offline images, analytics, ad delivery, authentication and access control. We'll show you how we solved these problems for the FT and in doing so set a new benchmark for what can be achieved with open web standards and HTML5.

The session will go through the challenges faced by the BBC World Service in providing a mobile version of its content across 27 languages and how we used PhoneGap to help cross the bridge into the app world.

The unexpected explosion in the use of data connectivity has taken key industry stakeholders by surprise, in particular network operators who are at the forefront of delivering services to customers. This is good news for the industry as a whole, as a new dawn of growth and development is at last on the horizon. Nevertheless, the good news is marred by a number of challenges facing network operators in sustaining the anticipated growth. What are the challenges facing network operators to cope with this new phenomenon? Can a common understanding be forged across the industry stakeholders to make it a win-win situation for all including the end users?

When building apps, the idea of freemium apps and games appears to be uppermost in app creators minds when trying to think of the next big thing. Well, what we've found is that the transformation that can occur when an enterprise has the right app technology introduced is astounding.

We will share some experiences of apps that we've built with enterprise partners including one that turned a quick project into a core business dependency within a few short months.

Given the history of our location, the attendees will understand some of the history behind basic code making and code breaking and will learn some of the skills as it applied to Julius Caesar and others. Attendees will also understand why as developers, security is important in the mobile phone world.

Key points: this session with give practical take aways rather than inspirational concepts & there will be haribo.

Theres a lot of buzz around mobile design, examining adaptive designs, creating focus etc and these are all good forward thinking moves and highly relevant, but as so often happens accessibility is being forgotten. The first thing that will jump to most peoples minds is the image of a blind person but for many users mobile devices are actually wonderfully accessible to the blind but are next to unusable for people with physical disabilities. I intend to look at how many well known design conventions for desktop are inverted for mobile, how Fitts law has been turned on its head and show how a basic understanding of ergonomics is now massively important and will change design conventions over the coming years, and I will discuss how these aspects dont just affect disabled users, they affect every single user of mobile devices.

Can we make a difference in societies – especially in Africa – by fostering the growth of a new generation of creators, entrepreneurs, makers that use mobile and web technologies to provide locally relevant services?

We think so, and that’s why – last year – the Web Foundation started working on 2 mobile entrepreneurship labs, in Ghana and Kenya. The session will present some of the cool things happening in these innovation hubs, will reflect on the challenges and will help participants understand what are the future opportunities in the region, and why they are important for Europe.