Client: Virtual Educa
Event: Virtual Educa Connect (http://virtualeduca.org/connect/)
Service: Virtual event management; Online activities; Q&A facilitation; Marketing
Challenge
The Virtual Educa congress is a unique event focused on innovation in education for social transformation and sustainable development. This year it was set to return to Europe and fill in a gap for education providers in the continent. Due to COVID-19, the congress had to be postponed to November. In two and a half months, the online event – Virtual Educa Connect – had to be put together in terms of the academic program and building the virtual environment to host the event. The expectations were for a large event and heavy platform traffic, due to it being free and addressing such a hot topic in the field. This meant a close collaboration between Virtual Educa, the Kenes Spain team, as well as the global Kenes IT department.
Solution
With the event being advertised by top Spanish newspapers, in addition to the Kenes Spain marketing efforts with an online advertisement, email marketing, and social media promotion, the registrations reached an all-time record of over 84K people. Kenes IT ensured that the platform will sustain the traffic and the experience will be smooth for all users.
To reinforce the Virtual Educa’s brand and mission to support education providers, selected live sessions were broadcasted on both Facebook and YouTube. All delegates and viewers responded very well to the event and the content and were very engaged on all social media channels and the platform.
Outcomes
The collaboration between all parties was smooth and Virtual Educa Connect was an easy-going online experience, even with peak traffic of nearly 7,000 users logged in at one time.
The sessions that were the most attended featured the opening with the Spanish and Portuguese Secretaries of Education, the inauguration ceremony with the Spanish and Portuguese Ministers of Education, as well as a few sessions that discussed reinventing the role of technology in education, very pertinent to the current climate. Overall, the pre-recorded videos had 7,6 million impressions and a landslide of positive comments from all participants.
After the event, for a two-month period, the academic content can still be accessed by both registered participants and new registrants at a minimal fee. Virtual Educa Connect creates the foundations of the World Congress, which will take place in November 2020.
Watch an interview with the event’s project manager, Alexandra Boriceanu.
The event is a Gold award winner in the Online Educational Event category at Eventex Awards 2021.
It also won Bronze at the Premios Eventoplus Awards in the Best Congress or Conference category.