In a paper for NESTA (What’s App?) David Rowan, the editor of Wired magazine highlights the rapid increase in the potential customer base for mobile apps: “in Western Europe, 3G mobile penetration has risen from 17 per cent in 2007 to 29 per cent in 2009 and is forecast to reach 67 per cent in 2011; in Japan it is already 91 per cent.” In fact, total shipments of smartphones are forecast to be c230M in 2010, with Western Europe accounting for 20% of these.

A paper by Mediateque for the BBC, taking a broad view of the app economy, translates that device penetration into potential economic impacts: “There is large variation in revenue outputs among the various forecasts, although unsurprisingly the general consensus is one of significant market growth. These consensus forecasts suggest that total worldwide apps revenue will reach somewhere in the region of $15-20bn by 2013/14; this compares to total apps revenue of less than $5bn currently.” At the top end of that range Gartner estimates that total apps revenue will reach $30bn by 2013, with advertising revenues contributing $6.5bn of this amount.

Now in its third year Vodafone has launched Mobile Clicks 2010, a competition to identify and reward innovative mobile starts ups. Open to businesses across the Netherlands, UK and Portugal a total of €150,000 is available for investment into two projects – the call for applications closes August 22^nd.

To help digital firms successfully enter this competition, we have organised a series of six regional events taking place through-out May and June 2010.

The six Partnering for Innovation events will take place around the UK, in Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol and London.

The TSB fund will be in the form of a competition launched to promote lasting alliances between technology companies and entrepreneurs. To qualify for both streams, projects must be truly collaborative, with at least one partner.

Partners can be drawn from businesses large or small, academia, research and technology organisations, not for profit organisations, but the projects must be led by revenue earning business entity.

Applicants can pitch for projects of up to £99,000 as part of the fast track, or for larger projects of up to £2-3m, with grants available for up to 50% of the total project costs.

These free Partnering for Innovation events will cover:

• How to enter the Collaboration across Industries competition
• Detailed information on deadlines & eligibility
• Networking and collaboration opportunities
• Workshops on proposal writing and pitching
• The chance to quiz the TSB on specific proposal issues
• What to expect from the application process

Dates for the diary:

• Tues, 25th May – alongside Thinking Digital at Live Theatre, Newcastle – register
• Tues, 2nd June – Watershed, Bristol – register
• Weds, 3rd June – IAB, London – register
• Tues, 8th June – Glasgow, Scottish Youth Theatre – register
• Thurs, 24th June – Manchester, Bridgewater – register
• Tues, 29th June - IAB, London – register

The events are free to attend but space is limited so do register using the links above to secure a spot.

At Innovate Lord Sugar – famous for telling people they are fired – told the audience that entrepreneur was a title that others gave to you and not one that you should use to describe yourself. But he did add that since he took on his new government role he had met quite a few good up-and-coming business people.

A session on Digital Britain did bring two successful entrepreneurs to the stage. Anthony Lilley, chief executive of Magic Lantern Productions and Sara Murray, founder and MD of Buddie and a member of the advisory board of Seedcamp , a micros seed fund. Both faced the question: “why don’t we have more entrepreneurs?”

Anthony suggested that what we need is an environment in which kids where as likely to grow up wanting to be Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, as a rock star like Justin Timberlake. Sara suggested that as a country we are still not as proud of entrepreneurs as some other nations.

She also raised the question of how available funding is for small start-ups, suggesting that when businesses need funding in their very early stages it was often difficult to find. She said this was a gap that Seedcamp helped fill but also suggested that the UK needed a network of angles that would support people with good ideas.

This was theme that Lord Mandelson, took up when he gave the keynote address. He echoed what Sara had said about early stage funding, telling the audience the UK’s financial markets had under delivered in supporting start-ups and that risk aversion must not stifle the growth of innovation in the UK. He added that the government is helping create a fund that he hopes will help tackle this problem.
He was quick to add that investment professionals and not politicians or civil servants would manage this.

So are we on the brink of a new wave of entrepreneurs? Perhaps the problem is that we get too hung up on the idea that you have to be Richard Branson or James Dyson, or Larry and Sergey, to count as an entrepreneur. The UK has many successful businesses, albeit on a small scale than Virgin or Google, which are profitable, innovative and create jobs. This is particularly true in the creative industries.

So lets not be afraid to use the word entrepreneur about the people running these businesses. They might not become as high profile as Justin Timberlake but it might make us realise just how entrepreneurial the UK is.