This article was published on September 19, 2011

Mobile Brain Bank’s founder discusses getting mobile professionals back into work [Interview]


Mobile Brain Bank’s founder discusses getting mobile professionals back into work [Interview]

Back in June, we reported on how Nokia’s former employees were helping to kick-start the Finnish tech startup scene. As part of this feature, we spoke with Petra Söderling who is Head of Open Source, Symbian Smartphones (Nokia), a member of the board at the Finnish Mobile Association and also founder of Mobile Brain Bank.

Mobile Brain Bank is a Finland-based non-profit organization which seeks to join the skills of developers and other experienced individuals who have left a safe corporate career behind. Petra founded the organization around the time of the economic downturn to help encourage the tens of thousands of mobile professionals who were leaving companies such as Nokia, Motorola and Intel to launch their own startups. “Some of these companies offered very nice severance packages”, says Petra. “So some people also had money. The idea was to start an organization where we’d encourage these people to turn into entrepreneurs and launch new startups in the mobile industry.”

Petra has now announced that she will be launching a new ‘for profit’ counterpart to accompany its existing service, where developer entrepreneurs and startups can offer their skills to companies requiring mobile applications. It’s an online matching service for specific development projects.

Petra took some time out at The Future of Mobile Conference on Friday to talk to The Next Web about Mobile Brain Bank and its new service, and here’s what she had to say:

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