We had another big week! Having been tasked with running the AMI AGM 2022 on our online events platform, Forumm. Over 300 attendees logged on from 50+ countries, and our fantastic team was able to stream the event in 3 different languages. Keep reading to find out more...
What was the brief for the event?
AMI is an educational organisation that empowers teachers and community leaders using the holistic approach of Maria Montessori. We worked alongside them on their 2021 AGM to great success and AMI approached us once again to help run their 2022 AGM, this time with a "Changemakers" theme. Their original plan was to run the two-day 2022 event with a hybrid approach, however AMI decided against it due to the ongoing waves of COVID-19.
What were the biggest challenges for AMI?
AMI currently operates in 75+ countries; alongside location issues, language barriers can be an ever increasing hurdle on this global scale. The variety of spoken languages meant AMI faced an uphill battle making sure that the content could be understood by all attendees.
Another issue that comes from globalisation is the restriction of access in countries such as
China, where numerous online services are blacklisted. This meant that Chinese attendees
were locked behind ‘The Great Firewall of China’ and wouldn’t have been able to log in and access the content as easily as attendees based in the UK, US, or The Netherlands.
How did Forumm solve those problems?
It was clear from an early stage that Spanish and Mandarin translators were a key part to this event, so right from the get-go we worked closely with our 448 Broadcast Team to come up with a purpose-built operational solution. Over the next 8 weeks, we built into the platform the capability for translators to log on and access the live stage rooms, where they would be granted "interpreter" access. Simple as you like!
Providing a solution for the Chinese attendees would prove to be slightly more difficult as there wasn't much we could change on the platform side. The difficulty here is that the restrictions are country wide, and are therefore difficult to circumvent. The solution involved a collaborative effort from the Mandarin interpreters who suggested that we join forces with the Chinese Xiao’e Tong platform. The interpreters would screenshare directly from Forumm onto the Chinese platform, meaning the Chinese attendees could sign in directly to Xiao’e Tong, completely bypassing any censorship!
Networking is our platform’s bread and butter. It allows attendees to meet and thrive within
Forumm which enhances the event as a whole. We were able to integrate two types of
breakout rooms that had independent ways of functioning, and as such, brought different benefits to attendees.
The first was the typical many-to-many room (think similar structure to a Zoom room) which AMI were able to tailor fit to different sessions within their agenda. The second type was a networking room, structure slightly differently, that allowed attendees to create groups, spaces, and move freely throughout.
How did we make the event platform unique for AMI?
The AMI platform was the perfect proving ground for our team to integrate solutions to newly
discovered hurdles. One great example is the introduction of one of my new favourite features; the Live Support Chat.
We've always provided technical support on the run up to an event and on event days themselves however, until AMI 2022, we've never had a live chat on the platform that attendees can contact directly to request assistance. That changed about two weeks before the event when our backend developers were able to create a purpose built live chat solution and embed it directly onto the platform.
With the sheer number of stages - 3x Main Stages and 3x Parallel Stages - we had on the
platform it quickly became apparent that our default menu bar (that's the bar on the left hand side of the platform with the different icons) wouldn’t cut it.
We quickly identified this and devised an effective solution; a brand new page on the platform which hosted each of the aforementioned stages separately. We then tabbed off this page to ensure that the stages were kept organised and simple for attendees to navigate. This may seem like a simple fix but it’s one that revolutionised the way attendees were able to access stages.
All in all the AMI AGM 2022 was a thoroughly successful event that allowed Forumm and AMI to continue their working partnership and trial new features, processes, and platform integrations. We can’t wait to see what 2023 brings!
