Lean HE International Online Conference 2021
Register here – Early Bird Rate Ends on 13th August 2021
Building momentum, learning from others and continually improving
My involvement with the Lean HE International Conference dates back to 2014 when I attended the conference hosted by Cardiff University. I think it’s fair to say that the conference over the following years has continued to evolve as conference hosts collaborate with and learn from each other. Lean HE helps to facilitate this collaboration by inviting the past, the current and the future hosts to be members of the Lean HE Global Steering Committee.
This provides a great opportunity to help and support one another, to learn from the things that went well and from those that didn’t go quite so well. That is part of what we do with our colleagues day in and day out as CI/Lean practitioners and I think it’s only right that Lean HE as an organisation practices what it preaches.
As the conference host for the conference in 2021, I have reached out to past hosts including Krista from the University of Michigan and Svein Are from UiT - The Arctic University of Norway, who have always been happy to help in any way they can.
Krista and her team also made available the standard work that they applied to their conference organisation and I have used these standards to support the organisation of the 2021 conference. After all, why reinvent the wheel? In the same way that Krista and Svein Are have helped me, I will reciprocate by helping future conference hosts, as the privilege of hosting this wonderful conference passes on to Australia in 2022 and North America in 2023. This also embodies the mission of Lean HE, which aims to “promote continuous improvement philosophies in HE through networking, the sharing of best practice and by supporting the delivery of a conference series.
At Strathclyde, we will use the support and learnings from others to host the best possible conference experience for the global lean HE community, building on the momentum and fantastic conference experiences from the past. So what will the 2021 conference look like? Well first of all it will be fully virtual. Our professional OnAIR conference platform provides a seamless secure and high-quality user experience for conference attendees, speakers, and presenters. The conference will enable attendees to meet in a secure space to present, showcase, learn, network, and discuss Lean in Higher Education with practitioners from across the world. Our online conference platform will also provide:
- A Personalised Conference Timeline: with your live agenda of sessions, workshops, and networking opportunities in one easy-to-use screen.
- Virtual Networking Groupswhere you can meet colleagues from across the world and exchange ideas
- Live Sessionsand Workshops: with Q &A and polling etc.
- Concurrent Sessions: offering attendees with a range of themes and the opportunity to add variety to your personalised conference programme
- A Meeting Hub– a great place to meet fellow attendees, exchange contact details and share ideas and experiences
- Live Technical Support for presenters and attendees
We are currently putting the conference programme together and we have lined up four inspirational keynote speakers from around the world. The programme will also contain lots of rich, diverse, high-quality interactive workshops, providing attendees with the opportunity to personalise their programme to suit their needs and areas of interest.
We are also putting together a social programme to provide attendees with the opportunity to do some social networking as well as giving an insight into the culture and history of Glasgow and Scotland.
Our aim is to provide the best possible conference experience, in a way that helps, supports, encourages, and challenges you to make a step change.
If you would like to find out more about the Lean HE International Conference 2021, or have any questions about this blog, please get in touch: john.hogg@strath.ac.uk
