By: Ahmed Siddiqui

Ahhh…mobile. That funny little word that used to drum up images of trailer parks and oversized, portable telephones has now become an industry unto itself – rearing and ready to go, in search of continued innovation and the next best anything. Yes, mobile…you are utterly “hot” in every way.

So what happens when you put 120+ entrepreneurs, developers, designers, (ahh hem…many of them from Stanford and Carnegie Melon – those dummies – and some from companies like IBM, Cisco, and dare we say…Google?) in a roughly 4,000 sq. ft. space (AT&T Foundry, more about this awesome space below) for 54 hours?

Well, here it is – by the numbers:

1. 1/20/11: Rousing excitement from over 120 attendees after a kick-off session with Peter Boctor, VP of Mobile at Zaarly.
2. 1/20/11: 45 pitches to a room full of peers, all vying for their spot as mobile’s next best thing.

3. 1/20/11: 17 winning, crowd sourced pitches that would set the stage for team selection.

4. 1/21/11: 17 teams worked feverishly to develop, design, and test their mobile-focused product for over 15 hours.

5. 1/21/11: 12 mentors worked with the teams to provide input and feedback.

6. 1/21/11: Approximate number of pivots that happened after the feedback sessions – 4.

7. 1/21/11: Alex Donn from the AT&T Developer Program spoke with 20 developers about the new AT&T API Platform and how to leverage these new APIs to differentiate their apps with APIs for SMS, MMS, Location, Device Info, and Payments. P.S. The developers also got a taste for the Sencha development framework to help accelerate their mobile builds.

8. 1/21/11: Microsoft gave out 3 Windows Mobile phones. The Out Tonight (an app developed to help users meet other local singles) team had the greatest number of votes, and won a phone; one team (“What now?”) chose to build on Windows mobile platform, earning them 2 phones by the end of the weekend.

9. 1/21/11: Brandon Hill from Btrax design and branding consultancy mentored the 17 teams after 1 amazing dinner, making sure that their user interfaces were top notch.

10. 1/22/11: 17 teams worked for over 8 hours to hone their pitches, wrap up their projects, and prepare for the evening competition.

11. 1/22/11: Finally, on Sunday night, 17 teams presented to our panel of 5 amazing judges: Scott Rutherford of UserVoice, Mary Himinkool of Google Ventures, Rebekah Iliff of talkTECH Communications, Mark Nagel of the AT&T Foundry, and Yujin Chung of Andreessen Horowitz.

12. 1/22/11: 1 lucky (and talented!) winner was chosen, entitling them to a fierce prize package that will set them up for future success. The team “Speech Later” (led by Minnesota native John Mellesmoen) wowed the judges with their development and implementation of a technology platform (served through a Google Chrome Widget) that allows users to send news articles to a mobile device for future “listening” – you know, for that long commute home. Next stop: Andreesen Horowitz for a consulting session. Did someone say funding opportunity?

13. 1/22/11: 1 runner up, “TinyAddr” (the Bit.ly for physical addresses), impressed the judges with their simple, streamlined solution and well-designed presentation.

BONUS: We also ran a cool experiment with our friends at Quillt, a mobile app that lets you privately share “experiences”. All of the pitches and pictures of the event were immediately loaded up into the Startup Weekend Bay Area Quillt. Quilting isn’t for your grandma anymore folks!

More about the AT&T Foundry: The AT&T Foundry™ innovation centers are fast-paced and collaborative environments where AT&T and technology providers team with developers to deliver the latest applications and services into the hands of customers more quickly than ever before. More than just showrooms or test labs, AT&T Foundry™ facilities are unique spaces, built to foster collaboration. We bring the expertise of AT&T innovators into an environment where we can work with industry technology experts and developers from all over the world to innovate in new ways.

Now that Startup Weekend Bay Area “Mobile” has wrapped, it’s time to start looking forward to the next event: Startup Weekend Bay Area “Education”, which will be hosted by Kno in Santa Clara, February 24-26!