Sponsor your Speaker to leave a Legacy in the Local Community

The MICE – Meetings, Incentive, Congress and Exhibitions – industry is young, dynamic and growing at an exponential rate. The trends followed by this industry are continuously changing. Some phase out after a period of time, while some trends stick and become an integral part of the industry. The concept of leaving a positive “Legacy” in the place where an event is organised, is one such recent trend which is getting recognised as an important feature by the industry – and it is a trend which is here to stay.

So what exactly do we mean by legacy in the context of event organising? The notion of legacy is multi-faceted and far-reaching. In its simplest form, it ensures that as many sustainable benefits as possible are to be generated by the event for all stakeholders and communities in the destination where it happens.

The concept for delivering these benefits must begin well before and continue during the event. It is important for the event organizers to have a legacy vision and a plan to leverage every possible opportunity. Creating a positive and lasting legacy requires deliberate effort, strong leadership, and sustained commitment and attention and it can only work in a close relationship between the hosting destination and the organizers – but then it ensures that everyone including the attendees, hosts and organizers take back something which lasts way beyond the event timeline.

A legacy concept could mean to leave physical or technical infrastructure used for your event in the destination. It could focus on pulling in the locals to embrace eg the particular topic of a medical congress or raise their interest for opportunities available in the sporting world if hosting a major sports event. It can also increase the awareness about a particular subject or topic in a city or region to integrate their local experts in that segment. Or it can mean sponsoring a thought provoking talk or key note by an expert commissioned for the congress and then fund his/her additional performance in a local university or research institute.

It is such a good opportunity to make available an expert speaker, who you have researched and carefully selected, already paid to come to the destination and then to donate an additional speech which enables those who do not attend the congress but would be super inspired by the talk (students!), to benefit. A new idea or inspiration is probably one of the best things an event organizer can bring into the host destination – ideas can be life changing, or influencing the particular knowledge in the destination in the best possible way.

One such expert and key note speaker is Dr. Pero Mićić and his field of expertise is foresight and future management, an area which has tremendous potential and influence on the audience’s life and happiness. He is on the Board of the FutureManagementGroup AG, whose mission is to help top decision makers in business, politics and public administration see more of the future than their competition.

Dr. Pero Mićić advises the management teams and future experts of large corporations and leading medium sized companies on the results and methods of entrepreneurial futures research and accompanies them in the implementation of practicable market opportunities and strategies.

This context and advise is also very valuable for scientific organizations as they are also in need to apply commercial methods and thinking.

Dr. Mićić is a keynote-speaker at congresses and symposia in cities such as Mexico City, Houston, Washington, Warsaw, London, Paris, Barcelona, Budapest, Prague, Moscow, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. His talks concentrate on making the audience understand the existing future trends, better envisage the future for their own businesses and finally create a roadmap for accomplishing a future vision. Such talks can entirely alter attendees’ way of thinking and help lead onto the path of success.

Giving you some examples of possible applications and how to connect topics to create legacy:

Qatar will be hosting the International Conference on Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development (ICEIRD) in October 2018. ICEIRD is a three-day conference organised by the University of Sheffield’s International Faculty bringing together academics, university technology managers, entrepreneurs, policy-makers and businesses to foster and promote innovation-led growth. The conference offers a platform for academics, university technology managers, entrepreneurs, policy-makers and businesses interested in the theory and practice of university-industry links as well as innovation, entrepreneurship, and regional development. It would be a perfect gathering to apply the legacy thought and bring in Dr. Mićić.

Similarly, the IMEX trade fair in Frankfurt, which will take place next year from May 15 to May 17, 2018 has “innovation” as one of its key themes. There are innovative formats, such as the “Agency Forum”, in which experts and executives from all over the world will be accompanying discussions on developments in the industry and -new in 2018 – the “She Means Business” conference – the aim of this conference is the role of women to celebrate in the global meeting industry and connect women around the world. What about IMEX sponsoring a key master presenter at this forum to a local organization of women entrepreneurs?

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These are just examples of how a professional keynote talk like the one by Dr. Pero Mićić can be used to leave a strong legacy of your event to the local community. Entrepreneurship absolutely needs a robust plan and to integrate innovation for their future to be successful. In this regard, insights and advice from an expert provides the multitude of attendees an indispensible basis to work upon. It is legacy in its best possible form.