“The challenge of hosting the WFTO’s Fair Trade Summit in Cape Town – with the focus on inclusivity – for participants either on-line or in person.”
Rain Morgan – Fair Trade
In Sept we hosted WFTO’s International Fair Trade Summit in Cape Town. When planning started (about 18months before), we committed to make the summit as inclusive as possible for all our members – super ambitious considering we have members in 83 countries, representing almost as many languages and dialects.
Practically, it meant designing the event so that as many members as possible could participate (either on-line or in person). It was also important to offer a number of translation options (not everyone has access to, or is technologically equipped to make all the options work). To complicate matters further, some of the presenters (sometimes 2 at a time!) were on-line, interacting with the virtual and physical audience, and other presenters in the room. At the same time, the sessions were being recorded and ‘broadcast’ through a YouTube link to non-members and interested observers.
Translations inside the hall were through the ’SpeakSee’ system which automatically translated what was being said in the room into a number of different languages (at any one time there were ±18 languages active in the hall). Delegates could ’connect’ to the SpeakSee kit with a QR code and read the narrative on their mobile phones. On-line delegates were encouraged to use voice to text translation apps on their mobiles or, where it is available, licensed voice to voice translation software.
The tech team said this was the most complex set-up (with the most wires!) they had ever run from inside the Century City Convention Center!
Over the three days of the summit, the process ran smoothly (the hitches that did happen were fixable on the fly and almost all due to human error on the side of the presenters). However it would not have worked at all without the highly professional tech teams. Moral of the story? Employ experienced professionals – they will make it work for you!
In spite of all the technology, people really appreciated being able to connect with each other and judging by the activity at the ‘post-box’ wall (and the number of messages people left for each other – see pic above), there was definitely a space for ‘old fashioned’ pen and paper notes.
Moment of light relief: spoke to one of the delegates about Derek’s ’Negotiation’ talk – they remember ONE thing vividly: “Speak soft words, but always carry a gun…”. Let’s hope they go into their next negotiation with the soft words (without the gun!).