Conference News: MWC Moves to Sin City; Economist Shares Scoop on new Data Summit; GHC opens CFP

From LA to Sin City: Last week the GSMA announced that the North American edition of MWC will move to Las Vegas from LA. MWC Las Vegas will be delivered in partnership with the CTIA and will happen from 28 – 30 September Las Vegas Convention Center’s (LVCC) new West Hall. CTIA will again host its ‘Everything Policy’ at the event, “bringing policymakers to the stake to discuss trends and developments in government and public policy.” The conference will again focus on topics such as 5G, IoT Connectivity, Telco Cloud, and Disruptive Innovation.

Double the Fun: As mentioned here previously TC Sessions: Mobility 2022 will be Live again on 18-19 May in San Diego. To ensure that everyone who wants to attend is able, they are doubling the venue pace and the number of attendees to 2000. And what better way to explore “mobility’ than with an expanded outdoor test-drive playground!

Speaking Opportunity: AnitaB.org’s flagship event Grace Hopper Celebration/GHC (20-23 September; Orlando) brings the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Heralding a much-anticipated return to an in-person format, GHC announced its call for speakers, along with a few changes to the submission form in 2022. The biggest change? A paper template is no longer required to submit an idea. That said, GHC still requires a high-level of detail and thoughtful description of why each topic is relevant for this audience and how it would be presented, so don’t wait until the week before the 4 May (at 5pm PT sharp!) deadline to begin crafting your submission. Be sure to review the tracks with plenty of time to spare and consider whether your topics fits best within a Listen & Learn, Participate & Share, or Engage & Connect format.

Conference Manager Q&A: Ruki R., Senior editor and programme lead of strategic events at the Economist, is currently programming a new virtual series called, “The data dividend: harnessing information for competitive advantage.”  The first summit held virtually on 12 April, will bring together industry experts, business leaders, data scientists, academics and futurists to explore how organisations can harness the disruptive power of data and ready their data for artificial intelligence (AI). We caught up with Ruki who shared her thoughts on speaker selection and conference development.

Speaker Strategies: What is the most important trait of a good speaker?

The most distinguishing trait of a good speaker is the ability to communicate a good story. Stories can be a compelling way to share the most basic ideas in an engaging and easy-to-digest way.

Speaker Strategies: What is the most important piece of a successful presentation abstract/topic description?

In a conventional in-person conference, there are a great variety of techniques to make presentation slides engaging. In discussions, and particularly online discussions, where there are no slides or visual cues, the most important thing to do is to raise interesting and thought-provoking questions of your fellow panelists, and to have a few key points you’d like to raise.

Speaker Strategies: How do you determine when/where to host your conference?

In the past two years, a lot of conferences have become virtual. However, with the return of in-person events we’re organising events in many different geographies. When picking a location, we usually explore what kinds of industries exist in the locale, and more recently, regulations governing access and travel.

Coming Up Next Week: For the first time since 2019, SXSW returns in-person to Austin (11-20 March) offering the same music, film, creative, tech, and ideas festival programming conference-goers remember. Attending South by Southwest? Know that although COVID risk-based guidelines are changing nationally, existing guidelines will remain in place. SXSW also offers some virtual content and a corresponding online registration. HIMSS – short for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Annual Conference and Exhibition – gets underway 14 March in Orlando and online. Healthcare professionals, CIOs and senior executives, providers and payers, and IT consultants and entrepreneurs attend this influential conference. At FT Women at the Top Americas (14 March; New York), CEOs and other leaders will gather onsite at The Nasdaq MarketSite to learn which business strategies and policies are really making progress. The 2022 Women at the Top theme will be “Reset & Rise.” Adobe Summit will run 15-17 March for a global, online audience partner and user audience, with specific programming geared and timed for the Americas, EMEA, APAC, and Japan. Finally, WSJ’s Women In series continues on 15 March with Women in the Entertainment Industry, drawing attention to leaders at the helm of studios, networks and creative teams who are changing the way we tell stories, consume media and manage entertainment businesses.