IDSA International Design Conference and Education Symposium
Virtual Event - Sept 17-18, 2020
For the past two years, IDSA's annual IDC has convened our global community of designers for a few exciting days of connection, skill-building, and inspiration. The 2020 event was originally planned to be in-person; however, due to health concerns arising from the novel coronavirus pandemic, IDSA quickly realized that a pivot would be necessary. As a result, our biggest event of the year happened virtually for the first time.
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And if that wasn't enough of a challenge, we tried something that had not previously been attempted by any other international design conference, to our knowledge: a virtual event with attendees and presenters logging in from around the world for a continuous span of 24 hours.
We wanted to build something that was truly unique.
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"This format helped to separate us from other events and allowed us to address a truly global audience. It didn't try to replicate an in-person format in a digital environment, but rather leveraged the best of what a virtual experience can provide in order to create an entirely new attendee experience."
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- Chris Livaudais, IDSA Executive Director
Emcees guide the way
A key element of the IDC experience is the energy and guiding force of the emcees. They help to navigate the transitions between speakers and craft a lively narrative for the audience that spans the entire event. This year was no exception, with six tracks of top-tier design content guided by five spectacular emcees:
A global gathering
IDC 2020 was a success on multiple levels: the diversity of speakers, content, and perspectives; the ease with which the emcees, presenters, and attendees navigated the entirely virtual experience; and the IDSA Staff and volunteers' ability to convert an in-person gathering to an online event that still managed to bring the ID community together for learning, fun, and fellowship.
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The conference featured nearly 80 speakers from 9 different countries, all diving into highly relevant topics that spanned a variety of design disciplines, such as industrial design, UX, service design, medical design, furniture design, graphic design, and more.
