Innovation association adopts challenge-based approach to conference content

The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM) is taking a challenge-based approach to its content creation for upcoming conferences in Asia-Pacific, in order to emphasise the legacy potential of its events and attract more attendees.

The new approach will kick off with ISPIM Connects in Fukuoka, Japan, from December 2-5 this year.

In preparation for this, the ISPIM team, led by executive director Iain Bitran, sat down with Fukuoka city government officers to identity major challenges facing the city and its people.

“They gave us eight hottest challenges they have at the moment, and we picked three that our innovation community could best help with. The challenges we chose were population ageing, energy transition and building a conducive start-up eco-system,” said Bitran.

“We found that when there is a challenge-based conference content, the local community becomes rather passionate and want to be involved. That’s because the challenges are issues they can identify with, and would want to know or discuss solutions,” he added.

“Having challenge-based content also allows us to facilitate connections between people and communities that wouldn’t usually think of connecting. For example, researchers of population ageing and energy transition who will present at our conference will get to meet with innovation experts – people outside of their field – who share the same passion.”

However, Bitran said that for this approach to work, there must be a challenge owner in the city.

Citing an example, he said: “We are looking at bringing ISPIM Connects to Singapore in 2019 but we have not been able to identify an agency that could give us the answers (to challenges that the city is facing). Usually we meet with the authority or people who are involved in innovation, such as the national innovation agency. There isn’t one in Singapore, and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research has not been able to help. So I’m taking a different route by talking to the Singapore University of Technology and Design. If that fails, then we won’t do Singapore at all.”

Besides boosting local and regional attendance and facilitating broader connections, Bitran said taking a challenge-based content approach also allows ISPIM to “build legacy into the event programme”.

“By engaging city stakeholders (in the programming), such as working with a local university to conduct research on a challenge and implementing solutions with the challenge owner, we can track and measure the positive impact our efforts bring to the local community,” he explained.