June 26 — 28
IFRC | Solferino Academy
HIFHUB
The Netherlands Red Cross
Global Disaster Preparedness Center
Norwegian Red Cross
Climate Centre
Welcome to the
Global Innovation Summit Digital FAQ!
Why are you doing a Global Innovation Summit digital and hybrid event?
Some participants want in-person events to enrich meaningful connections and conduct more participatory activities. Others struggle to spare the time or resources to attend in-person events. After consultation and feedback from National Society and IFRC secretariat colleagues, we were encouraged to host additional activities online to be more inclusive and create opportunities for the wider network to connect and learn from each other.
Table of Contents
- How can I register for the GIS Digital event?
- Will you have event activities in my time zone?
- What does registration cost for GIS Digital?
- Can I participate in the GIS digital sessions if I attend the GIS in person in Nairobi?
- Who should attend?
- How can I apply to host a GIS digital session or meetup?
- How will you curate and accept ‘sessions’?
- Why are you limiting the number of digital sessions?
- If my session is not selected, how can I be engaged more?
- How will GIS hybrid sessions be managed?
- How can my GIS Digital event be Hybrid?
- Will the event be in other languages?
- How can I demo at the Global Innovation Summit – Digital event?
- How will the Global Innovation Summit Digital demo meetups work?
- Can I volunteer to help support GIS Digital?
How can I register for the GIS Digital event?
The Global Innovation Summit – Digital event has a different registration process. For the GIS digital event, register here. We recommend participation from Red Cross Red Crescent colleagues and their partners. There is limited online space. If you do register for the digital GIS and are unable to attend please let us know.
If you intend to be in person in Nairobi, there is a separate registration process with hotels and other logistics. Note: Please use this registration form to join GIS in person in Kenya.
Will you have event activities in my time zone?
We will have 3 timezone showcases focused on one for Asia Pacific, one for Europe/Africa/MENA and one for the Americas. These will include a mix of sessions – digital and hybrid to give a global opportunity to participate. Each timezone will have a meetup, an activity and/or a keynote/panel.
What does registration cost for GIS Digital?
There is no registration cost for the event. However, if you register and are unable to attend the digital event, please do let us know as we will open your spot for others: [email protected]
Can I participate in the GIS digital sessions if I attend the GIS in person in Nairobi?
Please register for the GIS – Digital event; we will keep you informed.
Who should attend?
The Global Innovation Summit – Digital event is for staff and volunteers of the IFRC network of National Societies. Some sessions have limited spaces, so we kindly ask that registration is kept within the IFRC network.
How can I apply to host a GIS digital session or meetup?
The GIS Digital event has some curated sessions and some meetups. These have been coordinated with teams and thematic hosts. We will have limited digital session timeslots available. We will work with our teams to determine if the topic aligns with the focus of the GIS Digital event. We will encourage applicants to join meetups and demos if their submission is not accepted.
If you want to host a session or demonstrate your IFRC National Society product/service or join the Ask an Innovator/Technologist session, please express your interest here.
Until when can I submit a session proposal?
You can propose a session until June 7th, 2023.
How will you curate and accept ‘sessions’?
We have a minimal number of spots for full sessions. These events are reserved for staff and volunteers of the IFRC network of National Societies. Submissions to host a session will be reviewed by a steering group of the GIS Digital made up of IFRC Secretariat and NS staff representatives.
Whether or not your session is accepted we’d encourage you to join a demo or a meetup during the Global Innovation Summit – Digital event.
Selection Criteria
- On topic – digital transformation, innovation and engagement.
- Broad and relevant enough to reach the whole network.
- Interesting and engaging methodology for the session. See this link for more ideas.
- Some submissions may be asked to merge with other sessions, demos or meetups.
- Submitted by an IFRC staff or volunteer
Some of the goals we aim for with GIS Digital:
- Highlight how (digital) innovation can help the IFRC network of national societies address the five global challenges and seven transformations identified in IFRC Strategy 2030.
- Contribute to accelerating digital transformation across the global network.
- Connect National Society and IFRC network innovators and changemakers across the world so they can learn from and collaborate and build sustainable networks for the future.
- Provide creative spaces that enable people to show what is happening currently around the network in innovative attempts at driving change, in particular where we have been successful, and to learn from and connect with these initiatives.
- Explore what conditions can help innovation and change thrive in our organization and what we can do to enable these conditions.
- Explore the challenges and barriers we face in driving more innovation and change and investigate potential strategies to address them.
- Celebrate our successes and build momentum for the change agenda across our network.
Why are you limiting the number of digital sessions?
Previously, we hosted Data and Digital Week – a global virtual event with 3,000 participants joining from 130 countries and self-organizing over 130 sessions across all time zones in multiple languages.
The feedback we received from this effort and one of our key lessons from this was to reduce the scope of the meeting and to focus more on the overall participant engagement. GIS digital will prioritize these strategies with a few organized/structured sessions, a focus on how to make hybrid formats work, and greater efforts at genuine connection. However, we expect similar levels of participant engagement numbers throughout the event.
If my session is not selected, how can I be engaged more?
The IFRC Solferino Academy accepts short 3 – 5 minute videos explaining your digital project and work in your National Society. We publish these on the Solferino Voices Youtube channel and will play them throughout the Summit. To submit your video please send it to [email protected]. We recommend you watch some of the other videos already published on this channel to get an idea of the kinds of videos we publish.
How will GIS hybrid sessions be managed?
We are working with teams to determine which keynotes, panels and workshops/activities being held in person at the IFRC Global Innovation Summit would best suit the hybrid format. Please indicate this in your application, and we can discuss it further. In principle, hybrid sessions should have lead organizers both online and in Kenya to unify the experience.
A select few keynotes and some panel sessions will be live and broadcast via YouTube, Facebook or Linked In. These will be filmed and directed by an onsite camera and production team. We will have community engagement helpers both online and in person to help provide a unique experience.
How can my GIS Digital event be Hybrid?
A few sessions will be delivered as participatory hybrid sessions, where the online participants can participate in workshops, discussions and questions alongside those in the room. These will be scheduled and highly curated events with a strong direction. We will deliver good technological processes and toolsets to ensure smooth interaction between online and in-person participants.
Will the event be in other languages?
We have a small budget and are unable to provide interpretation for sessions. Some teams may choose to run their session in the language of their choice. If you want to organise your own interpretation, we will be happy to support you.
How can I demo at the Global Innovation Summit – Digital event?
We will host daily meetups and demo sessions to allow you to meet peers interested in demoing their products and services. All demo participants must be staff or volunteers of the Movement to be included. We will host rapid demonstrations and then provide breakout rooms for demo leaders to meet summit participants. The demo meetups will be scheduled across various time zones.
How will the Global Innovation Summit Digital demo meetups work?
Teams/individuals will get 5 minutes to demo their idea /product/services (approximately 3-5 per session). The 2nd half of the session will have breakout rooms for people to share more deeply on those topics/demos. Demo people must show up 30 minutes in advance and be ready. If they don’t, they will be cut from the agenda. We won’t collect slides in advance, so they must be ready. We will share the slides with participants post event.
Can I volunteer to help support GIS Digital?
We seek a few technical hosts, engagement support and facilitators to help us have engaging sessions.
Facilitators – These leaders will help us have meaningful engagement in the sessions. They will do introductions and keep the session on time and topic.
Engagement – We aim to have equitable dialogue for digital and hybrid events. These leaders will help our teams and participants better connect.
Technical hosts – These leaders will collaborate with our technical teams to test sounds, support the digital studio, and help participants engage digitally.
Please send a note with the role you’d like to play and share any experience you might have – [email protected]