Executive Summary 

The UCSF-Stanford Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (CERSI) has been hosting their Regulatory Science Summit annually for the past six years, drawing in thousands of registrants. Additionally, the Center organizes a Cybersecurity Seminar series and a CERSI Bayesian course. The CERSI Regulatory Science Summit will be the focus of this particular case study.

About the CERSI SUMMIT 

The CERSI Summit is an annual gathering of leaders in the academia, industry and regulatory sectors to discuss the role of regulatory science in medical product development to promote understanding and inform FDA guidance. The summit consists of panels, debates, and discussions around timely topics and regulatory science.

Challenges 

Real Time Communication with Attendees 

In previous CERSI Summits at UCSF, the organizers often faced challenges in keeping real-time communication with attendees. Traditional methods of communicating updates such as emails often resulted in difficulties in conveying last minute updates and information. 

Manual Name Badge Generation 

In the years prior, the event organizers relied on manually creating and printing name badges before the event. This was a tedious process involving spreadsheets, creating custom templates from scratch, and handling bulk printing in advance. 

Lack of Online Networking Opportunities 

Before using Whova’s event app, encouraging and facilitating networking was a significant challenge. Without a dedicated online space, networking opportunities outside of scheduled sessions were more limited.

Solutions 

Announcements and In-App Messages 

Utilizing Whova’s in-app messages and announcements, the CERSI Summit organizers were able to instantly communicate with attendees in real time. This drastically improved the efficiency of event updates and ensured attendees were informed of any last minute changes or important reminders.

Announcements were sent out in-app and via email simultaneously to ensure awareness of updates.

Name Badge Templates and Printing 

Utilizing Whova’s name badge designer tool, the organizers were able to design professional name badge templates while reducing manual effort on their end. With over 3,553 badges printed, organizers were able to efficiently produce and distribute badges, significantly reducing administrative burden. Instead of manually submitting attendee lists and printing in advance, the team leveraged Whova’s seamless system to generate and print thousands of name badges on-site during check-in.

The organizers designed professional name badges utilizing Whova’s professional templates.

Attendee Meet-Ups and Messaging

Whova’s community board provided attendees with an interactive space to connect with one another. The event had 2,200 messages exchanged amongst participants and 215 community board posts facilitating discussions and organizing meet-ups. This connectivity created a more dynamic networking experience for attendees, fostering valuable discussions.

Attendees utilized the community board to organize meet-ups for high value networking.

Testimonial

“Whova really helped to facilitate things for me. It made things really smooth and easy in ways that I didn’t imagine that it could be…  I expected to do things manually, creating all the name badges, submitting a spreadsheet of attendees, and having to use our own templates. Whova made that process really easy, especially with printing thousands of name badges, updating the agenda in real time, sending announcements, and creating the survey and having that sent out automatically. It is really convenient.” – Holly Ly, CERSI Education Coordinator – University of California, San Francisco 

Conclusion

The UCSF CERSI Summit successfully integrated Whova into its event planning strategy, significantly improving communication, streamlining badge generation, and enhancing networking opportunities. With Whova, the organizers were able to host efficient real-time communication with attendees, printed thousands of badges with ease, and enabled seamless real-time engagement between attendees

By choosing Whova, the UCSF CERSI Summit ensured a more connected and efficient event experience for both organizers and attendees while cutting down on manual efforts. The event not only facilitated meaningful discussions in regulatory science but also leveraged digital tools to enhance attendee engagement and streamline event operations. The support from Whova’s team throughout the process further solidified its value as an essential platform for executing a successful summit.