The secret behind award-winning congress event is a feeling of togetherness – “We created event that was like one big coffee break”
The City of Jyväskylä awarded local congress and public events on Wednesday 8 February 2022. The award for the best congress event was shared between PROFES, the International Conference on Product-Focused Software Process Improvement and ALAPP, International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice.
The jury particularly emphasized the fact that the events were held on-site in Jyväskylä. Both PROFES and ALAPP were on-site event that attracted a large number of researchers from different disciplines from all over the world.
Professor Pekka Abrahamsson, responsible for organizing the PROFES event, says that the event team decided right from the planning stage not to make it a hybrid event, but to have all participants on-site.
“We wanted to create an active and communal experience for the visitors. The future is not about attending events remotely and staring at a computer screen from one’s home. The future is events where you can physically meet other researchers in your field, professor Abrahamsson says.
According to the PROFES organizers, the aim was to minimize the time spent on passively listening to the conference presentations. And that time could be spent on interaction, questions and discussion.
“We also wanted to take the conference guests away from the university, into the urban environment. Such events are also intended to activate and support local businesses and give event participants a chance to get to know what is happening off campus.”
Professor Abrahamsson says there was a constant supply of coffee in the conference hall and that “the whole event felt like one big coffee break”.
“We were so successful in creating a communal and social atmosphere for the event because it was a joint effort by the whole team. The entire StartupLab research team, from professors, to post-doctoral researchers and research assistants, were involved in making the event happen”, says professor Abrahamsson, praising the organizing team.
Esa Lehtinen, Vice-Director of the Department of Language and Communication Studies, says he is also very happy about the ALAPP conference award and says that the organization of the conference has become routine for an experienced team of organizers.
“Despite the uncertainty caused by the Corona situation, we decided early on to organize an on-site conference. There was a good spirit of cooperation throughout the organizing committee and the feedback we received was so good that we could not even believe it. Thanks for the success goes to a great team.”
The PROFES conference, held in Jyväskylä for the 23rd time, is one of the most recognized software industry conferences in the world. Its aim is to increase cooperation between universities, researchers, and industry in the software sector. A total of 130 visitors from 20 countries attended the conference.
The ALAPP conference aims to bring together researchers from different disciplines, particularly linguistics, communication and professional fields, to share ideas and discuss the latest innovations in the field. This was the 12th edition of the conference.
In addition to the PROFES and ALAPP conferences, Mihaly Szerovay, Professor of Practice at the The Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, Ģֱ, was awarded the Congress Ambassador's Prize for his work for the Nordic Football Conference. The Nordic Football Conference is an event organized by the The Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences in cooperation with the Finnish Football Association.
More information
Professor Pekka Abrahamsson
pekka.abrahamsson@jyu.fi
+358 40 541 5929
Professor Tommi Mikkonen
tommi.j.mikkonen@jyu.fi
+358 50 3117999
Assistant Professor Rahul Mohanani
rahul.p.mohanani@jyu.fi
+358 50 5936653