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Digest
Explore our latest ConfTech digest and newsletter archive
Manuals
‘How to’ and guidelines through various meeting platforms
Platforms & tools
Overview of conferencing platforms and tools
Meetings are at the core of human interaction, governance, and diplomatic practice. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of technology to organise meetings online. A hybrid format, which combines face-to-face with online meetings, is emerging.
ConfTech’s activities are centred around five pillars – technology, security, moderation, behaviour, diplomacy – as analysed during Diplo’s landmark conference on ‘Future of Meetings‘.
ConfTech achieves its mission through five areas of work:
- Training
- ConfTech lab
- Help Desk
- Platforms & tools
- Research
Contributions from Switzerland and Finland, and operational support by the Ford Foundation, helped make the ConfTech a reality. Get in touch with us at conftech@diplomacy.edu
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Help Desk
COVID-19 has forced the world to shift to a digital way of working and meeting, creating a new normal, which is likely here to stay. While some have managed to adapt easily, others need a helping hand to adapt to online meetings and conferences and select the right approach and tools.
The Help Desk provides immediate advice to help countries and organisations identify solutions and make quick decisions on how to organise and run online meetings and events. The Help desk also helps meeting organisers identify and manage unknown unknowns.
There are two ways to access the Help Desk:
- Consult our FAQ page available here. If your query is not included in our FAQ page, please send us a message by clicking on the chat icon on the bottom right-hand corner and one of our representatives will get back to you shortly.
- Alternatively, send us an e-mail at conftech@diplomacy.edu with your query.
Meeting organisers who are pressed for time can outsource their meeting or event to ConfTech for tailored hands-on assistance. ConfTech can help the meeting organisers in the following activities:
In the previous months, ConfTech has assisted its partners in organising numerous events, such as SEEDIG 6, RegHorizon AI Policy Conference, Youth IGF Turkey, to name a few.
ConfTech Lab in Geneva
The ConfTech Lab in Geneva was launched in October 2020 with the aim of developing innovative ways of hosting and moderating online and hybrid events. It uses the latest technology to bridge the gap between onsite and online and increase the quality of meetings and conferences. A similar ConfTech lab in Belgrade was launched in January 2021.
Training
Online meetings and conferences have become a necessity for most organisations. In our four-week highly interactive and practice-based course, participants learned how to plan, manage, and run successful online events – from choosing and using an appropriate technical platform, and planning the entire process from the initial idea to follow up, to effectively moderating interaction in an online environment.
This course was timely especially with the ongoing global shift from onsite to online blended meetings. I was particularly impressed by the use of group moderation exercises that allowed the participants to gain practical skills in running and moderating online meetings and events. Skills gained through the course are very relevant to my career as a diplomat as I adopt the new future of online meetings.
I found this course to be highly relevant to anyone involved in online organising, chairing and moderating online meetings. Furthermore, student engagement and collaboration was great and understand the value of different online tools when it comes to organising online meetings and conferences. The instructors were experts who explained the concept with easy to understand and clear instructions. I highly recommended this course
The course opened my eyes to the right approach to online event organization and will be very beneficial in the future events we are organizing!
Congratulations to Diplo for a well-conducted and moderated course, which has opened so many possibilities, including for capacity building in conducting digital meetings.
This course perfectly responded to a know-how gap many of us experienced while abruptly transitioning from physical to online meetings in international Geneva. With all of our diplomatic meetings moved online, it has been great to compare different web conferencing platforms, to choose the one that best fits the needs of our meetings. I loved the hands-on approach of the course, which provided step-by-step guides on preparing and running online meetings as well as opportunities for students to test the features of different platforms and even moderate online discussions.
The course was very well designed, relevant to current times, and most importantly, easy to digest and apply. After the 5-week course, my level of awareness and confidence on how to effectively conduct and attend online meetings improved significantly. From planning, technical, and social aspects for online meetings to tips and tricks for effective moderation, I gained a great deal of new knowledge – applicable for both my professional and personal engagements.
Platforms & tools
Choosing the right platform and tools depends on how small or large your group will be, the level of engagement during the meeting or event, the duration of each meeting, and the regularity.
Think also about the technical expertise of your group, and the skills needed to use the platform. Will you use multimedia during the meeting? Will your participants connect also through mobile devices? What is the cost you are willing to pay? To help you choose the right option for your needs, we’ve reviewed some of the leading online platforms. Click here to explore our comparative analysis of major online meeting and conferencing platforms.
Conftech Digest
ConfTech Digest #20, November
Published on December 14, 2022
ConfTech Digest #18, August
Published on September 14, 2022
ConfTech Digest #17, July
Published on August 11, 2022
ConfTech Digest #16, June
Published on July 11, 2022
ConfTech Digest #15, May
Published on June 13, 2022
ConfTech Digest #14, April
Published on May 16, 2022
ConfTech Digest #13, February
Published on March 10, 2022
ConfTech Digest #12, January
Published on February 11, 2022
ConfTech Digest #11, November
Published on December 9, 2021
ConfTech Digest #10, October
Published on November 9, 2021
ConfTech Digest #9, September
Published on October 11, 2021
ConfTech Digest #8, August
Published on September 9, 2021
ConfTech Digest #7, July
Published on August 3, 2021
ConfTech Digest #6, June
Published on July 5, 2021
ConfTech Digest #5, May
Published on June 2, 2021
ConfTech Digest #4, April
Published on May 7, 2021
ConfTech Digest #3, March
Published on April 5, 2021
ConfTech Digest #2, February
Published on March 5, 2021
ConfTech Digest #1, January
Published February 2, 2021
Research
ConfTech helps meeting organisers develop, conduct or moderate online meetings and conferences successfully by developing related guides and manuals.
Check below to access a set of platform guides, do’s and don’t for hosts and moderators and many other tips and tricks for effective video conferencing.
