Jumpstarting productivity with Project Spark

Some 80 event planners including PCMA chapter students and educators, recently saw how Project Spark, a free research and educational initiative using Generative AI, could help them to plan and execute their events more productively.

Organised by The Professional Conventions Management Association (PCMA) as part of its PCMA APAC Lab series on 8 June, 2023, the event was themed, The Future of Work: Impact of AI on the Workforce at Sands Expo & Convention Centre.

Speaker, Laurence Liew, director for AI Innovation, AI Singapore, who is driving the adoption of AI in the country, gave tips on how to harness the power of Generative AI.

Liew’s tips included always ensuring that the source of predictive information is correct because such technology can generate hallucinations - when AI literally makes up facts. AI algorithms can generate strange outputs that are not consistent with their training data when they are unsure of how to answer. When there are knowledge gaps, the AI will use the most statistically close information. Liew gave an example of how ChatGPT gave an incorrect answer to a Mathematics question in the Singapore Primary School Leaving Examination (grade 6).

It would be extremely costly to build a large language model (LLM) and planners would be encouraged to leverage on existing models and customising them which “makes more commercial sense”, he said. His organisation is helping companies to do so with the 100 Experiments and the AI Apprenticeship programmes.

As an advocate for Project Spark, he had this to say: “It encapsulates the complexity of knowing how to phrase questions in the way you want. Its prompts give the necessary guardrails.”

Second speaker, Tay Ee Learn, chief sector skills officer at NTUC LearningHub, shared statistics from the World Economic Forum, highlighting that 44% of workers’ core skills are expected to change in the next five years as the proportion of tasks completed by humans will change from 66% in 2022 to 57% by 2027. Tay engages regulators, unions and industries to launch learning services and solutions for various sectors in the economy, including tourism. He stressed that the workforce of today must be constantly learning, agile and flexible to adapt to the speed of change.

Also announced at the event was the launch of new training programmes to “uplift Singapore’s MICE sector” by NTUC LearningHub and PCMA. Course content will include holistic wellness travel for regenerative tourism, sustainability, AI and technology for MICE.

Attendees were also asked to brainstorm on how they could use Project Spark. Ideas shared included competitor research, ideation, data collection, crafting social media posts, networking activities, event planning, and summarising media articles and long documents.

Cara Puah, deputy director, Tourism, NTUC LearningHub, a seasoned event professional-turned-educator, said: “The PCMA Labs event was truly an enriching experience. The presentations and panel discussions were thought-provoking, providing valuable insights into the latest advancements in AI and machine learning.

“The session not only highlighted the potential of using AI in the events industry, but it also provided clarity on the possible transformative power of using AI to transform the field of event management. The diverse group of audience in the event made it an enriching experience for all. Overall, the PCMA Labs event was a remarkable gathering that left me inspired and excited about the future of technology.”

Sherriff Karamat, PCMA and CEMA president and CEO, said: “AI is not going to take your job away. People using AI will. Project Spark can improve your productivity anywhere between 30 and 70%. If you speak to any event organiser, I will tell you one thing that (they will say): ‘I am overwhelmed at what is coming at me and I have no time.’ This is an opportunity to use a tool to allow you to be much more strategic and productive. You can use it to market a destination, plan events, and every facet of the value chain.”