With an enormous program spanning 8 days, we were delighted to support the Academy of Internation Business in delivering their first ever virtual event.
EVENT
AIB 2020 Online
When
Where
day program
hours of live & on-demand content
sessions
speakers, chairs and moderators
Our solution
EventsAir program and speaker management
Challenges & Successes
The Academy of International Business (AIB) were early adopters of the OnAIR platform, making the decision to move what should have been their annual meeting in sunny Miami to the virtual space in late May 2020. With a six-week lead time, Touchpoint took up the challenge to engineer the newly released OnAIR platform for what remains to be the largest program we have delivered.
Breakout ‘drop in’ style networking rooms were a large part of the AIB program which, while not catered for directly via OnAIR in its infancy, were provided with some ingenuity, by linking external Zoom rooms to sessions. This allowed delegates a central place to watch plenaries and access all content, while maintaining the interactions delegates expected.
As an international association, delegates and presenters logged on from all over the world and were catered for with a rolling 24-hour program of content with speakers scheduled to their suitable time zone, where possible. The Touchpoint team adapted their delivery with two separate teams, each working 12 hour shifts to break the program into manageable pieces to ensure a seamless delivery over 24 hours, no matter the time of day (or night!).
What we said
“AIB 2020 Online remains one of the most challenging and rewarding virtual events I have managed to date. The AIB team, namely Tunga Kiyak, were fantastic to work with for their adaptability, communication, and overall positivity despite the various challenges of working in a new space. Our team went above and beyond to pull this one together with hundreds of sessions to deliver, we all got a real taste for what OnAIR and Touchpoint are capable of.” – Erica Zarins, Project Manager (Touchpoint)
What our client said
“… While your whole team worked hard, I believe it is appropriate for me here to recognize Erica Zarins and Daniel Branik. Both were with us throughout the experience, and Tunga has received many positive comments about how helpful and pleasant they were throughout the event. This is also my personal experience. When I was unable to enter the opening plenary of our Latin American & Caribbean Chapter conference, AIB-LAC 2020 (despite using the correct pasted-in credentials, which subsequently worked perfectly), with great aplomb, Erica parachuted me in with three minutes to spare, saving the day. There will always be teething troubles, but your staff handled them in a cool and efficient way, which gave so much confidence to us nervous academics. Erica also was extremely helpful in answering questions with me live before we were about to go into one panel, and in extricating me from a screen share I could not get out of. And, in another panel session Dan, your Technology Manager, was absolutely charming and reassuring to all the panelists. I can honestly say it was a pleasure for us all, not only those of us on the organizational side of AIB, but also for all our conference participants to meet your excellent team.” – Jeremy Clegg, University of Leeds, President, AIB