A man in Los Angeles uses his cellphone to find the nearest Thai restaurant, while woman in a Hong Kong swipes her iPad to check the day’s business headlines. Chances are, they’re using a Canadian-built mobile application.

With an estimated 200 mobile app companies working out of Toronto alone, Canada is making a name for itself in the rapidly changing world of information on the go.

In a recent article, the Wall Street Journal called the city a “hotbed of mobile innovation.

Canada’s savoir-faire in broadband and digital media has become part of its makeup, said Michael J. O'Farrell, founder of the Mobile Institute and author of the book Mobile Internet for Dummies.

“A lot of us grew up on a Nortel backbone, he recently told QMI Agency.

People often equate mobile in Canada with Research in Motion but there’s a lot more to it than just the BlackBerry.

“A lot of Canadians companies have been under the radar. They do a lot of work internationally and sometimes it’s not their brand at the forefront, but they’re doing work on behalf of other big brands.

Developer Polar Mobile, for instance, has built apps for Time and Sports Illustrated magazines in the U.S.

On its website, Polar says more than six million people in 100 countries use its apps built in Toronto.

At Toronto's Xtreme Labs, developers designed mobile software for InterActive Corp., the New York-based company that owns a basket of popular websites including Ask.com and Urbanspoon.com.

MyThum has developed programs for Best Buy and Impact Mobile. QuickPlay Media, which enables mobile video, has telecom partners around the world and has even opened an office in the U.K. to meet demand.

Finally, O'Farrell said, these companies are starting to get recognition at home and abroad.

O'Farrell hopes the second annual Mobile Innovation Week, which kicks off Monday, will help keep the ball rolling.

The City of Toronto is even working on a proclamation to name the week Mobile Innovation Week, he said.

It helps that Canadian entrepreneurs are backed by what O'Farrell calls “the best mobile networks in the world.

Canada is the only country in the world where the Apple iPhone is available on all major carriers, for instance.

O'Farrell believes that has helped to spawn innovation from the college, university and business communities.

It can’t hurt that the world headquarters for RIM are located in Waterloo, Ont.

Even Montreal, known for its video gaming industry, is bridging over into mobile. Ericsson has its number two largest lab outside of Sweden in Montreal to service the Americas.

“It’s not the brain drain of before, said O'Farrell. “Being here is actually to your advantage, especially when you work on an international scale.

Yellow Pages Group expects hundred of proposals from Canadians to pour in when it makes its Application Programming Interface public to developers at the conference later this week.

“We are going to get applications and mash-ups that we’re not thinking about, said Matthieu Houle, director of mobile and platforms at Yellow Pages Group.

Yellow Pages has made mobile the core of its growth strategy. Their latest app has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times, said Yellow Pages spokesperson Annie Marsolais.

Eventually Yellow Pages plans to open up its RedFlagDeals database to developers who will create localized shopping navigation apps.

ComScore also said it has chosen the event to make a major an announcement involving a Canadian mobile groundbreaker.

It only take tens of thousands of dollars to get creative in mobile which means provincial and federal government grants go along way in funding ideas.

Still, Canada has a long way to go before it can crack the top three mobile development countries globally. O’Farrell estimates Canada ranks somewhere in the top 10 and ahead of the U.S.

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