Dubbed the ‘world’s most influential mobile expert’, Tomi Ahonen is set to address the annual Mobile East Africa conference to be held in Nairobi on February 12 and 13, at the Southern Sun Mayfair.

Touted to be the world’s best speaker on matters of mobile technology, Ahonen was ranked as “the world’s most influential expert in mobile” by Forbes in 2012.

Ahonen has addressed a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people at more than 300 conferences in over 60 countries across the world.

He also writes widely on mobile and digital communities and has 12 bestselling titles under his belt.

He is referenced in over 140 books and is popularly known for coining the phrase “Mobile as the 7th mass media” back in 2007.

Apart from speaking at conferences all over the world, Ahonen works as a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, with a specialty in mobile strategy formulation.

With this being his first time ever in Kenya, Ahonen is planned to talk about the future of mobile and digital.

Mobile East Africa is an annual event that has been taking place since 2010, and over the years, it has attracted the attention of global speakers.

This year’s event brings experts from across the world hailing from the UK, India, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa. Local experts are to be drawn from different organisations including Jumia Kenya, iHub, Virtual City, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Google among others.

The event kicks off with a keynote session, ‘Leaders of Mobile’, with executives from IBM, SAP, Airtel and Safaricom.