Bold program design draws truly international audience | International Congress of Dermatology 2021

Challenges:

Designing a genuinely international, virtual conference within Australian timezones is highly challenging. Choosing program times that suit delegates from across the world at any given time is impossible – however this was the will of the Program Committee for the XIII International Congress of Dermatology 2021 (ICD 2021).

Solutions:

A bold decision was made to throw out the traditional conference model and hold a continuous, 24-hour ‘dermathon’. This flexibility for attendees, allowing them to log on to the conference program at whatever hour suited them. Time was carefully spent building the huge 150-hour program and inviting speakers from across the globe, with gender parity a particular objective.

Outcomes:

The conference attracted an incredibly wide representation of attendees, with registrations from 74 countries including far-flung places such as Peru, Latvia and Namibia. Broken down, ICD 2021 attendees came from Asia (30%), Oceania (42%), Europe (12%), North America (11%), Africa (3%) and South America (2%). The speaker line-up reflected the wide international audience and achieved the committee’s aim of gender parity, with 150 male and 152 female speakers.