The International Woman Leadership Conference

Executive Summary

In March of this year, The International Woman Leadership Conference (TIWLC) partnered with Whova to host their inaugural hybrid conference in Dubai. Community was at the center of the conference and organizers were looking for ways to build strong networks between attendees. Whova provided both organizers and attendees with the tools to forge lasting relationships and build an international community of like-minded leaders and entrepreneurs.

About The International Woman Leadership Conference

The International Woman Leadership Conference (TIWLC) was held by The Ibukun Awosika Leadership Academy in partnership with Dubai Tourism and Dubai Events over the course of three days. The event was a pan-African leadership conference that brought together over 400 C-Suite women from across the globe. The conference was meant to give attendees the opportunity to build and strengthen their networks, while building a strong international community of businesswomen.

Attendees gathered in Dubai this year, both in-person and virtually, to connect with one another, share ideas, and reflect on this year’s theme: “Women in Leadership… Playing to Win!”

Challenges

• Building Community

Attendees came to TIWLC from all over the world, both in person and virtually, presenting organizers with the challenge of finding ways to connect all attendees and build a strong community. They had to think about how virtual attendees and in-person attendees would talk to each other, despite physically being in different parts of the world. Ultimately, the organizers had to ask themselves what they could do to maximize the networking potential of this event.

• Find Out What Matters to Attendees

It can be difficult for organizers to figure out what content attendees enjoyed the most. They can send out surveys or question forms, but these often go unanswered by attendees. TIWLC organizers needed an accurate way to learn more about their attendees’ interests and maximize engagement potential in future events, without having to depend on others to provide the information to them.

• Making Sure Everyone Got to Where They Needed to Be

TIWLC was hosted in Dubai, but attendees were flying in from all over the world. Whenever traveling is involved, changes are bound to happen. Organizers needed a platform that would allow them to communicate last-minute logistical changes with attendees, as well as other important information, like changes in COVID regulations.

• Efficiently Manage Time

It can be a daunting task for event organizers to manage their time effectively. There are so many moving parts and tedious tasks that it can quickly become overwhelming. TIWLC organizers were interested in finding ways to streamline and automate the more tedious tasks, leaving them free to give their undivided attention to more urgent ones.

• Allowing All Attendees the Opportunity to Learn and Grow Together

In-person attendees have more opportunities to take in the information being presented at the conference by virtue of being more immersed in the materials. Virtual attendees can feel left out when it comes to networking sessions such as dinners and coffee talks. To avoid this, organizers had to find ways to fill in the gaps for virtual attendees to ensure that everyone could leave the event with new connections. Figuring out how to give virtual attendees a similar experience can be difficult for organizers, especially without a strong and capable platform like Whova.

Solutions

• Finding Community through Whova

Through features like Whova’s Community Board, attendees were able to meet up with others outside of the event, allowing them to not only foster working relationships, but also strong friendships. It gave attendees the opportunity to get to know each other more, not just as professionals, but as people. The best part? Discussions and meet-ups could be held virtually and in-person, so everyone had the opportunity to meet new people.

Discussion Topics and Social Groups

• Attendee Activity Metrics

With Whova’s Attendee Activity Metrics, organizers can see what sessions are drawing in the most attendees at a glance. It also displays how long attendees have been engaging with the session. Unlike surveys and question forms, Whova’s Attendee Activity Metrics don’t depend on others to provide the information. Organizers were able to access accurate information, as well as gain invaluable insight into what materials were most useful to their attendees.

• Announcements

Whova’s Announcements feature gave TIWLC organizers a quick and efficient way to notify attendees of the different changes in scheduling and logistics. With COVID still popping up in pockets, it was important to the organizers to be able to notify attendees of changing safety regulations. Whova allowed organizers to get in touch with multiple virtual attendees at once to guide them through the sign-up process. The Announcements feature was also useful in reminding attendees of the registration and check-in procedures, ensuring that things ran as smoothly as possible.

• Streamlined Speaker Registration

Whova’s Speaker Center allows organizers to delegate speaker registration to the speakers themselves. TWILC organizers were able to ask speakers to fill out their profiles and bios, instead of having to do it manually themselves. This freed up organizers’ time to take care of more urgent and time-intensive tasks, while also giving speakers full control of their profile. Not only this, it also provided speakers with the flexibility to update their information or presentation materials themselves, instead of having to go through organizers. The Speaker Center allowed much of the event planning process to be streamlined and ensured that the event would run as smoothly as possible.

• Engaging All Attendees

With Whova, it was easy for organizers to make virtual attendees feel engaged and included. Our app allowed organizers to embed Zoom sessions directly into Whova, giving both in-person and virtual attendees the opportunity to meaningfully engage with speakers. And while some networking opportunities were exclusive to in-person attendees, virtual attendees could still meet up with in-person attendees using Whova’s messaging, one-on-one video conferencing, and community board features.