IAPCO Driving Excellence – Innovation Award, supported by IMEX
Finding creative solutions to meet the frequent challenges encountered when organising an international congress is a day-to-day occurrence, however, such initiatives and indeed innovations frequently go unrecognised. This Innovation Award is to recognise those individuals who find the creative solution!
Rules of Entry
• Entries can be nominated by an IAPCO Member
• Entries are limited to one staff member per Member, but any staff member, whether from a Company Member or a registered Member Office, is eligible.
The Prize
The Winner
• Glass trophy, presented at IMEX to the individual winner
• IAPCO education voucher for the Annual Meeting for the individual creator
• glass trophy given to company of individual
• speaking slot at following Annual Meeting for the individual winner
• entitled to display the Award Mark on their business cards, stationery, biographical details/cv.
Shortlisted
• plaques given to all shortlisted
• 2 tickets to IMEX gala evening for those shortlisted
Submission
Using the online form the submission needs to include:
• 50 words – biographical details of the individual being nominated
• 50 words – biographical details of the PCO Member
• 50 words – about the event (if applicable to an event)
• A 250-500 words abstract of the creative solution within the following categories
– Outlining the challenge
– The approach and solution to the challenge
– The outcome
Judging
The IAPCO Council will judge the entries, based on the written submission noting the degree and complexity of the challenge and the success and creativity of the solution/outcome. Those shortlisted (maximum 3) will be invited to attend the IMEX Frankfurt Gala Evening (2 tickets per entry) where the winner will be announced.
Current Winner
Monica Fusaro and Marta Calderai, AIM Group International, were the celebrated winners of the IAPCO Driving Excellence Innovation Award, as supported by IMEX. In a break from tradition, the awards ceremony took place during the IAPCO #WinningWebinar as part of Planet IMEX titled ‘Olympians and Meeting Professionals – not so different after all’, with inspirational speakers, Panos Tzivanidis, Director at International Olympic Committee – Corporate Events and Services, and Victoria Thornley, Olympic Medallist for Team GB – Rowing.
The award, introduced by Carina Bauer, CEO of IMEX, and Ori Lahav, IAPCO President, was celebrated by a Zoom audience of meeting professionals.
IAPCO President, Lahav, said ‘Striving for Excellence, Professionalism, Resilience and Determination are just four qualities that meeting professionals and Olympians have in common.
2020 has been a challenging year, where we saw a complete landscape change in the meetings industry. Face to face meetings were postponed and cancelled. We, as meeting professionals, have had to adapt quickly and deliver innovative solutions to continue to organise valuable business meetings in virtual and hybrid formats.
The IAPCO Driving Excellence Innovation Award, supported by IMEX celebrates these innovations and creative solutions, where individuals have met a challenge and gone the extra mile to deliver above and beyond our clients’ expectations.
Our 2020 finalists, focussed on different areas of innovation; the first, from ICOM Egypt, concentrated on sustainability and CSR awareness to the delegates. The candidate from Conference Partners International, Ireland, created an innovative internal system to streamline operational procedures and ensure maximum quality delivery of business meetings to clients. The final shortlisted candidate from AIM Group International introduced web TV to their clients’ congress to broaden the reach of its high-quality scientific content.’
The finalists for the 2020 IAPCO Innovation Award were:
Zeyed Akram, ICOM
Miriam Verdon, Conference Partners International.
Monica Fusaro and Marta Calderai, AIM Group International
The IAPCO Innovation award is in its sixth year and attracted a record-breaking number of high-quality submissions. The results were very close and all those shortlisted deserve recognition for their creative solutions.