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Transitioning a large poster hall into a virtual environment requires not only collecting potentially thousands of poster presentations but also facilitating discussion between researchers and attendees to share the science. Coordinating a variety of time zones, providing a simple technical environment, controlling access to only registered attendees and protecting intellectual property all add to the challenges event professionals must face when planning scientific virtual events.
Using ATIV Software’s EventPilot conference technologies, organizers can offer their presenters a safe and easy to use environment to share their research. Organizers simply determine the parameters of what a presenter should be sharing (for example, a virtual poster with an audio explanation, a PDF ePoster, a prerecorded video, etc.) and the platform automatically manages the entire process.
During the upload process, even non-technical presenters can record a brief executive summary or audio explanation of their materials to provide an overview of the key points of their research. Materials can be uploaded by the presenter prior to the conference. This allows presenters to focus on engaging in discussions about the research at the live event itself.
With EventPilot conference technologies, event organizes can apply embargos or set the date when the pre-recorded content becomes available. This also provides an ideal solution for hybrid events where pre-recordings can be timed with the actual onsite live presentation.
One advantage of a virtual poster hall is that a presenter is not required to stand by their poster for hours on end and repeat their key points as people stop by. The pre-recorded audio explanations can be viewed by attendees before the live Q&A sessions with the presenters. This allows attendees to study the research materials in detail and prepare critical questions for the live discussion.
Thanks to the unique scientific search engine available within the EventPilot platform, attendees can search across the entire program or all of the posters to find the research related to their areas of interest, even if alternate terminology was used by the author (e.g. author published a paper on SARS-CoV-2 but the attendee searched for COVID-19). Using PosterBridge Connection, attendees can also reach out to the presenter directly letting them know they have a question to discuss even if they have to miss the scheduled Q&A discussion.
With the EventPilot conference technologies platform, the technical aspect of supporting speakers and presenters for virtual events is simplified. With a self-service speaker portal, much of the time spent collecting the collateral is fully automated, which allows event organizers to focus on other areas of the conference.
The EventPilot speaker portal allowed the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS) to host 1,800+ ePosters over the course of their conference. ASMS elected to host “Watch Parties” where a moderator played up to six recorded presentations followed by a live Q&A session. This simu-live approach guaranteed a presentation success without having to worry about the presenter’s technical skills or slow internet connections. The live Q&A enabled presenters to answer questions about their research and gather feedback.
ATIV Software has been building conference solutions for medical and scientific events for ten years. For the next five years, EventPilot conference technologies will continue to evolve to provide solutions for the industry. The EventPilot Desktop Planner plus Virtual Meeting App will continue to adapt as medical and scientific conferences evolve to include hybrid and fully virtual options. For hybrid events, the same platform will be used by onsite attendees as well as remote attendees, ensuring seamless usability between the two environments and helping associations save on costs.
