EPEPS 2020

February 16, 2021 by ekurzawa
Filed in: Virtual & Hybrid Event Case Studies Tag: Case Studies

Read about EPEPS’s journey to going virtual, shared by Kemal Aygun, Conference Co-Chair, 2020 IEEE Electrical Performance of Electronic Packages and Systems (EPEPS).

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About EPEPS

EPEPS is the premier international conference on advanced and emerging issues in electrical modeling, analysis, and design of electronic interconnections, packages, and systems. It also focuses on new methodologies and design techniques for evaluating and ensuring signal, power, and thermal integrity in high-speed designs. EPEPS is jointly sponsored by the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (EPS), IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S), and IEEE Antenna and Propagation Society (APS).

Pivoting to Virtual

Since early March this year, we were in regular communication with the key representatives from our IEEE sponsors with regard to this topic. These included Sam Karikalan and Denise Manning from EPS and Lukrecija Lelong from MCE.  At the beginning of May, with the approval of our IEEE sponsors, we made a decision to append the in-person event with virtual components to enable remote participation for attendees who would not be able to travel. We also appended the sponsorship packages with additional services that would appeal to remote participants (virtual booths, tutorial webcast opportunities, etc.). In the second half of July, it became clear that we would not be able to hold an in-person event due to the mandates initiated by Santa Clara County (where the in-person event would take place) that greatly limited social gatherings. This is the point at which, again by closely working with our IEEE sponsors, we decided to have a fully virtual event, broadcasted this information to potential conference attendees, and started working with the IEEE MCE Digital Events Team on the virtual conference.

Challenges

This is the first time EPEPS was held virtually, so everything was a first. EPEPS is a smaller conference where close networking and interaction among the attendees are greatly valued. We had to find a way to still enable such an environment as much as possible. Also, when we made the decision to go fully virtual, we were only ~2 months away from the conference start date. So we had very little time to make all the decisions and to put together everything needed for the virtual conference.

Partnering with MCE

In the face of the challenges outlined above, the MCE team provided us great support. Even though we had a very short amount of time to put together the virtual conference, they enabled us to realize the exact vision we had for the conference. This started from the recommendation of the right platform to use (which was very important), to architecting the platform, to constantly adjusting all the details with great care (many meetings and e-mails were involved) until the last second. All the hard work and great support by the MCE team resulted in the flawless execution of the virtual conference.

Successes

Our biggest success was probably the fact that we were able to successfully mimic a live conference and create as much networking and interaction to the extent possible at a virtual platform. As a result of this, a number of the attendees told us that this was the best virtual conference they ever attended. This was enabled by the many live ingredients we had incorporated into the program, which were made possible by using the particular platform and the structure recommended to us by the MCE team. We also wanted to build more excitement into the event that would help keep the attendees engaged (something that sometimes lacks in virtual events). For this, one feature we introduced was a ‘logo competition’ for the conference, the winner of which (who will also receive an award) was announced at the ‘live’ wrap-up presentation. Another tradition we are following this year from in-person events, even though it was a virtual event, is to mail all key contributors printed appreciation certificates. We made some other decisions along the way such as combining the Q&A for each paper in a technical session (typically 4) into a joint ‘live’ session, which worked out really well. Another one was turning our historically single-track event into a dual-track one for the technical sessions and limit the duration of the sessions to half a day so that international attendees and presenters can still attend (for most geos). This also ended up being a very good decision.

Lessons Learned

Putting together recorded presentations is a tedious and time-consuming process. If you are asking for recorded presentations, you should plan the schedule accordingly. Also, this requires considerably more follow-up with the presenters compared to an in-person event. The sponsorship packages for corporate sponsors also need to be crafted carefully for a virtual event. Complimentary registrations may not carry as much value. If you are planning to do virtual booths, you should really think and plan about how to do these in a way to maximize the returns for the sponsors. In our case, all virtual booths took place at the same time (we were thinking to make them similar to an in-person event) which seemed to impact the number of attendees that went to each of the virtual booths. We also had a tutorial at the same time which further impacted this.

Advice to Fellow Organizers

Try to start as early as possible. As highlighted above, ingredients such as recorded presentations take a considerable amount of time to put together. Also, maybe more importantly, articulate a clear vision for the virtual event and what you are trying to accomplish from the beginning. A virtual conference should not be thought of as just putting some presentations on the web. Think of why presenters, attendees, and sponsors have historically come to your event, and try your best to re-create or re-invent it virtually.

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