Mid-Term Conference, HCI Pillar 3 @ Convention Centre Dublin June 2023

BACKGROUND
To mark the mid-way point of the Human Capital Initiative (HCI) Programme – a five-year project investing €300m of National Training Fund funding, and to celebrate the progress with a wide audience including government stakeholders and Enterprise – the Higher Education Authority selected Fuzion to create and project manage a large-scale conference/exhibition.

EVENT PLANNING APPROACH

This ‘Mid-Term Conference’ required a complex, large-team operation, and began with the selection of a suitable venue – one that could host hundreds of attendees as well as exhibitors – and also reflect the future-facing ambitions of the project.

After much deliberation, Convention Centre Dublin was chosen, and we worked on a theme and design for the event. To reflect the partnership between Enterprise and Higher Education at the heart of HCI Pillar 3, we chose ‘Collaboration Nation’ as the theme and created a suite of ‘tech/futuristic’ design assets to reinforce the link between the two groups.

With 24 projects eager to share their progress with attending guests, media and politicians, this complex job required immense teamwork and patience, and hundreds of hours ensuring every project experienced a successful, stress-free day.

This event not only required project management of venue and speakers – it also required a full exhibition element to be included, with 24 projects exhibiting in multiple spaces. Fuzion coordinated the order of screens, furniture and power points, as well as the storing, delivery and removal of vast amounts of materials on the day, which ran from 6am to 6pm.

Fuzion secured Newstalk’s Futureproof host, Jonathan McCrea as MC, while also briefing him in advance ahead of a packed schedule that involved three panels with 16 speakers, a Keynote speaker broadcast live via the internet from the USA, and the visit and speech of Minister Simon Harris, Minister for Further & Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science & Justice.

In line with event management, our team coordinated PR engagement in advance of and following the launch. This included an on-the-day national and regional press release with photographs and media relations in advance of the launch, securing national newspaper and digital coverage.

EVENT BRANDING / VISUAL ASSETS

The creative team in Fuzion devised the event branding and designed all graphics and visual assets for the conference including signage, posters, social media infographics, screen graphics, handouts etc.  We also created motion graphics for the large event screens which brought the overall conference brand theme to life.

IMPACT
The HEA were delighted with the huge undertaking and its smooth operation on the day, to such an extent that other attendees enquired about the event managers. A satisfying end to a challenging project.