Future Shaper AIPC – Meet the World, See the Future.
In July this year, our Senior AV Project Manager had the privilege of attending the AIPC Future Shapers programme as part of the annual AIPC Congress in Shenzhen, China, at the Shenzhen World Exhibition Centre.
The Future Shapers programme selects emerging leaders from member organisations around the globe and sets them on a six-month course of professional development, with the goal of producing a white paper to address an industry issue. This culminated in an intense on-site workshop to craft the white paper into a conference presentation and deliver a live pitch to the AIPC Congress on our findings.
This excellent programme exposed the Future Shapers to the real-world scenario of working with an international group of stakeholders to develop a critical idea into a working brief that could be adopted by the industry.
Simon said, “On this journey we were supported by high-quality business and product specialists and mentors who helped us focus and hone our working methods to produce the best result.
For anyone considering career steps towards senior management or an executive level, this programme was an invaluable experience. Having the time to absorb and meaningfully engage with global industry experts, and work closely over an extended time frame with industry peers, was a highlight for me.
While I do have extensive experience in events, there are challenges I’ve discovered within the convention business that are unique to this setting. Meeting colleagues from centres on the other side of the world who can instantly empathise and speak to these unique issues, share their solutions or even just a battle scar or two, helped to provide a refreshing context to these challenges.
Seeing the scope of the global network of convention centres, talking with their leadership and hearing about similar problems, advantages, roadblocks and solutions provided an incredible perspective on how to review my own personal position when things get tough.
For me, it helped to put into scale some of the issues I tackle on a day-to-day basis. It left me feeling less isolated, and provided the opportunity to reflect with peers that the analysis and decisions we are making in the trenches do, in fact, parallel global work practices that are facing similar challenges unique to conventions.
A key learning for me is that Te Pae, despite being on the edge of the map, is a leading exemplar to the global industry in what a sustainable convention centre looks like and how it operates. This is a perspective I have brought back into the office, helping us to support and celebrate that what, for us, may be standard work practice is in fact providing inspiration to the industry, clients and delegates globally. Our story matters.
The Future Shapers programme provided a process to look up and view the convention industry on a wider horizon. It gave me the opportunity to stand with an incredible group of peers and pitch a real solution to actual industry leaders. It wasn’t a practice run; it was a necessary process of putting our own ideas to very real issues faced by the industry, and tabling what we believe the next steps should look like.
Our hosts in Shenzhen, China, put all this sentiment into an entirely new context. The special economic zone of Shenzhen represents an incredible approach to building the future.
Shenzhen is truly a cyber city, embracing electric vehicles and every form of digital integration. The city felt safe, quiet, clean and technically seamless. At times it was a bit overwhelming, with the sheer speed of development and mesmerising scale of the city constantly resetting your sense of what is possible.
While many in the West may not know much about Shenzhen, most of us will have something in our homes designed and built there. As the locals proudly pointed out, “Shenzhen is the factory of the world!”
Shenzhen and its vibrant people truly provided a lens into a future where mega cities are clean and green, with invisible technologies making things safer, simpler and faster.
Within all of this, one of my reflections from the AIPC Congress is that the convention industry, like many industries, is feeling sensitive to change. The balance of the world is shifting in new and noticeable ways. The rules of trade are evolving, and the challenges ahead are of a new dimension. Convention centres are metaphorically global citizens; their purpose and mission are rooted in celebrating multicultural and international values. In that light, the role of the convention industry is more essential than ever.
So, while we are always facing unknowns, leadership is about meeting these moments with tenacity, vision, skill and, hopefully, some grace.
Attending the congress and being part of the Future Shapers programme showed me that there has never been a more important time to connect, to reach out, to overcome challenges and to work together.”
