User-friendly features included in-built systems to narrow down areas of interest, gamified avatars, and e-certifications upon completion. Photo Credit: Pico Global
The Teachers’ Conference and ExCEL Fest (TCEF) is a biennial event organised by Singapore’s Ministry of Education. This year's 10th edition, held from 1 to 3 June, was the first time the development conference was held in an entirely virtual format.
Event management company, Pico, was appointed by the organising committee to conceptualise and develop a virtual edition of the event. The dedicated 13-member team also devised an engagement strategy to allow users to be fully immersed during the three-day programme.
TCEF 2021 organising committee member, Jeremy Ang, said: “[Pico] was able to design an interactive conference website based on our guiding principles and concepts, and were able to fulfil our requests and were flexible and responsive in making changes along the way.
"Participants commented that it was intuitive and easy to navigate the virtual platform for the conference, attend the live interactive sessions, and view the asynchronous content."
Attendees could personalise profiles with avatars, and even unlock 'rare' feaures based on stars achieved at the event.Creative ideas
To capture the best engagement across three days, the online platform featured a highly curated programme and personalised learning journeys for each attendee.
For instance, attendees could customise their profiles through unique avatar images. To incentivise the experience, attendees could also unlock 'rare' avatar images for their account, based on stars achieved during the event. A built-in recommendation feature also suggested webinar sessions based on specific profile attributes.
All presentations and sessions included a filter feature so attendees could better manage their preferences across various topics, such as teaching and learning, work processes and educational technology.
Users were given a filter feature to better manage their conference preferences.Execution
As with most virtual events post pandemic, live content such as webinars and keynote addresses were streamed via the virtual platform.
But it was the customised elements that helped create an attractive and useful experience for attendees.
To support professional development, the platform included a feature to track the progress of each attendee, which ultimately produced an e-certification upon completion of the event.
Interaction between the 16,000 attendees (educators in Singapore) and the 79 exhibitors was made possible through a chat function, and allowed attendees to submit requests to adopt a featured project.
Pico also worked in an awards ceremony, recognising educator achievements in categories including ‘Outstanding Innovator Award’, ‘Innergy – Work Processes’ and ‘Innergy – Academic/Training & Learning’.
In all, the three-day event featured more than 260 live interactions and 108 poster presentations — which resulted in more than a million views.
Key Learnings
Include highly customised functions to allow attendees to better manage preferences and track development during the conference
Gamification continues to drive engagement
Consider intuitive services such as built-in recommendation features