Designing an Inclusive and Engaging Hybrid Event: Experiences from CHIWORK

TL;DR

This paper shares experiences and lessons learned from organizing a small hybrid conference during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to develop best practices for inclusive and engaging hybrid events.

Contribution

It provides practical insights and lessons learned from organizing a hybrid conference, contributing to the emerging best practices for inclusive hybrid events.

Findings

Successful hybrid event organization requires careful planning and inclusivity considerations.

Lessons learned can guide future hybrid conference designs to be more engaging and accessible.

Experiences highlight the importance of balancing in-person and remote attendee needs.

Abstract

Conferences are a key place for training and education. Attendees learn about the state of the art of their field, about relevant methods, and acquire networking skills that can support their work. In the world that was changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we often need to organize hybrid training and education events, including conferences, with both in-person and remote attendees. Both organizers and attendees are eager for events that are productive, safe, and that bring together a diverse group of our colleagues, across multiple fields of study, multiple countries, as well as with different capacities to travel and attend in-person and remote meetings. However, the best practices for such hybrid events are still under development. In this document we hope to contribute to this development of best practices: we report on our experiences in organizing a small, hybrid conference, and provide the lessons we learned through this process.