IAPCO EDUCATION – FOR MEETING PROFESSIONALS, BY MEETING PROFESSIONALS

With quality of the services delivered by PCOs around the world at the core of our mission, IAPCO has always been focused on delivering top-notch education. Those who were lucky to attend the annual seminar in Wolfsberg (up until 2015) still refer to themselves as Wolfies.

Since 2016, our education offer has dramatically grown, and is continuing to do so. We are diversifying our programmes so that wherever you are in the world, there is something for you. Today, we are proud to announce the refreshing of our e-learning programme, webEDGE, as well as the increase of our seminar offerings, all virtual this year and switching to hybrid next year. In addition, Hosted EDGE, tailored seminars formatted for a specific community or organisation, have also been on the rise in 2021. Our faculty, lead by Matthias Posch and made of industry experts is expending, but never compromising on the quality delivered.

And because our goal is the development of our profession, we pride ourselves in offering our education at a low cost for the attendee.

“We made a very conscious decision after the world of COVID hit us globally last year to refresh the entire program content, taking into account our new world of virtual and hybrid meetings” said Sarah Markey-Hamm, a member of the webEDGE task force.

The programme comprises 14 modules, each with 4 x 15-minutes elements on a specific aspect of congress management. “It is a very hands-on project managersfocused program that covers comprehensively everything that you will need in your role as a project manager. We completely revamped the modules that have an element of hybrid or virtual meetings' management required within them”, added Barbara Calderwood, Chair of the task force. “And we've also brought on board some new presenters”, completed Jan Tonkin, the third member of the task force. “So there are some fresh perspectives that have come in and I think this was perfectly timed to match the needs of the market”.

WebEDGE is the IAPCO e-learning programme. It comprises over 15 hours of learning and is CMP accredited.

Why is it different? It is self-paced and bite-size. It is made up of presentations from experts around the globe who are immersed in the business events world and who have a depth of experience and share real-life examples.

Although the programme is more geared towards newcomers and can serve as a fantastic induction tool, we believe that because of the multiplicity of examples provided, it can also benefit more experienced professionals to refresh their practice and get new ideas.

Access is free for all employees of an IAPCO member company. For others, the programme is only $140 USD for one year of access. We are able to offer such a low fee because the programme is part of our core mission and investment to educate and raise the professionalism of our industry further.

The programme is on demand. Just hop onto www.webedge.iapco.org to sign up.

The EDGE Seminars have been designed for those who would like a truly immersive experience. Anyone who attended has made friends for life with fellow participants and built meaningful connections with industry experts.

The EDGE Seminars offer a mix of lecture, taught by key leaders in their field, and practical workshops, inviting attendees to apply their new skills right away.

Each regional EDGE will have a local flavour, ensuring that market specificities are fully embraced.

If you would like a more specific programme, contact us and our faculty will work with you to build it and ensure experts are delivering it. This could be for a specific topic, or a specific organization.

Take a look at our last EDGE Virtual Seminar, Latin America https://vimeo.com/616981024

The EDGE Seminar is a multiple day seminar mixing live presentations and very hands-on workshops where you will be working on a real-life event example and put into practice your newly learnt skills.

You will be able to connect with other events manager from your region (and even further) and engage with industry experts who will happily guide you. Because of the practical exercises, you can apply your new skills right away. If completely new to the profession, we would recommend participants first go through the webEDGE programme. But all levels are welcome and we will create working groups where everyone can develop their potential at their own pace.

A seminar costs between €300 and €1000 , depending on the type of attendance (virtual of in-person) as well as the region where it is offered.

Hurry up, it is still time to sign-up for this fully virtual seminar.

The seminar will hear from 11 key experts, including Singapore-based Oscar Cerezales from MCI Group, International Conference Services MD for Asia Patricia Cheong and Jan Tonkin, MD of the Conference Company. As well as offering new insights and advice, the experts will be available to answer questions and help brainstorm challenges.

Full programme and registration available online: visit thewebsite.

We are hosting webinars on a monthly basis. Our impact dialogues are open panel discussions on various topics (take a look p14 for a visual summary of our summer one on cybersecurity), whilst hot topic webinars provide key learnings on developing aspects of our profession. Check out our calendar or visit our website for on-demand access.