If there was any city in Europe that an international iPhone conference should be held at – its Amsterdam. No, not because it has an infamous red-light district and liberal policies towards the recreational use of cannabis, but because Amsteram represents some of the same values of free expression that makes the iPhone what it is today. Before the iPhone – mobile development was considered by many too difficult or cumbersome to deal with. Technology was limited, access to carriers for distribution was limited, and most of the deals were done behind closed doors.

While we may still have a ways to go before we reach mobile utopia (many would say that the Android platform is the next step in the right direction), the coming together of developers and thought leaders from around the world in a global conference is a step in the right direction.

Later this month (November 25th – 27th), the iCE Amsterdam conference will open its doors to those same developers and thought leaders to come together and share their knowledge and insights into the most exciting mobile platform on the planet. Some of those people include:

• Jonathan Wight, Chief Technology Office of Small Society, most notably on app projects like myStarbucks, WholeFoods and Obama 08.
  
• Keith Shepherd and Natalia Luckyanova co-founders of Imangi Studios, the team that bought us the popular “Harbor Master”
  
• Paran Johar, JumpTap’s head of global marketing activities
• Dom Sagolla of San Francisco who helped create Twitter in 2006, He is also the founder of DollarApp, and the co-founder and host of iPhoneDevCamp
• Mike Lee, known by some as “the World’s Toughest Programmer”, has worked on some of the best known titles on the App Store, including Obama ’08 and Tap Tap Revenge.

Just to name a few.

During the Pre-Conference day on Wednesday 25 November the iPhoneDevCamp will part of the program. iPhoneDevCamp is a not-for-profit gathering to develop applications for iPhone and iPod Touch using both the native SDK and web standards. Previous iPhoneDevCamp events have been held at Adobe Systems in San Francisco, July 2007 and August 2008. The last iPhoneDevCamp was at Yahoo in Sunnyvale, August 2009.

The event is actually sponsored by the city of Amsterdam itself, and if my “Convert” app from Polar Bear Farm is correct, cost ranges from $732.45 for one person to $294.46 per person if talk four of your closest friends into going with you.You can register for the conference here.