ICEF launches virtual networking events for education agents focused on the Americas and Australia/New Zealand                  

After 25 years of holding face-to-face networking events for international education professionals, ICEF today announced two new virtual events, taking place online in August 2020: 

- ICEF Virtual ANZA

- ICEF Virtual Americas

ICEF will offer these events free of charge to education and service providers who registered for ICEF’s postponed physical 2020 destination-focused events in Adelaide and Toronto. "Many of our clients are currently experiencing very tough times. This is ICEF's way of supporting them, and our industry in general, in this difficult period", said ICEF's CEO Markus Badde.

Both virtual ICEFs offer each participant around 50 one to one video meetings and an extensive online seminar programme with key stakeholders providing up-to-date information about market trends and issues currently affecting Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. 

Each event is set to run over three days to ensure that participants in different time zones have ample opportunities to meet, using the device of their choice. The usual rigorous ICEF screening standards will apply to agent selection, and the advanced search and scheduling functions mean that attendees can easily identify potential partners and arrange video meetings. Seminar content can be followed live or viewed on-demand since it will be recorded and made accessible to all participants around the clock.

ICEF Virtual ANZA will be held from August 4-6 and will attract over 200 ICEF screened education agents from around 40 countries. “Delivering agent networking events virtually is a high priority for our partners, supporters and clients in both Australia and New Zealand.  Agents will play an extremely important role in the recovery of international education in both study destinations.  Maintaining visibility and strong connections with key agents who are focussed on Australia and New Zealand will be critical to the recovery of individual institutions.” said Rod Hearps, VP Asia Pacific. The physical ANZA event has now been postponed to April 7-9, 2021, and will take place at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

ICEF Virtual Americas will take place from August 25-27 and is likely to attract over 400 agents from around 60 countries. Ian Cann, ICEF Director Americas said  “Building and maintaining meaningful partnerships is an essential component of our industry that won't change due to travel restrictions. We're proud to be announcing this virtual ICEF event as a must-attend event for any international education provider in the Americas who is planning for their next enrollment cycle, whether in-person or online. We expect this to be the largest event of its kind ever held.” The next physical ICEF Americas events are scheduled to take place in San Diego (December 14-16, 2020) and Vancouver (May 14-16, 2021).

For these two virtual events, ICEF’s technology partner is Marcom Connect, a leading provider of technology solutions for events in the field of international education. ICEF has been using the eSchedule PRO platform over the last 14 years and has now worked closely with Marcom Connect to provide the best online user experience possible, with Marcom eSchedule PRO now including dual time zone management and Zoom integration as well as other functions specific to virtual events.

Please see https://www.icef.com/virtual-events/ for further information.