Event Curation

I want to share my experience in content curation and speaker preparation to create well-curated and efficiently executed conference programmes.

A well-designed and delivered programme can be the difference between a valuable conference experience, and a disappointing waste of time.

I have 20+ years’ experience speaking at, attending, and organising academic and community conferences in Australia, Asia, the Americas, Africa and Europe!  

Let’s start with the content curation…

There are many stakeholders to satisfy, from sponsors to speakers to attendees. There are tight deadlines and budget and resource limits. There are out-dated elements in old programmes. Even the organising team members can have diverging aims. Plus, stakeholders’ expectations are changing, the competition for time and attention is increasing, and communication platforms are evolving.

Bespoke content curation takes into account the changing landscape of knowledge-exchange events and the unique histories and contexts of individual events.

It’s time to reinvent the programme and the content.

The programme is the schedule of activities – what time certain sessions start and finish, how long the breaks are, the amount of time for each speaker, the balance between learning and sharing. Whereas the content is the actual activity – what information will be delivered by a specific speaker, how networking will be facilitated, what value attendees gain from a session.

The best laid plans quickly unravel without speaker preparation…

Events that focus on the exchange of knowledge rely on speakers being skilled in communicating their knowledge.

Having a sage on the stage might attract an audience, but if they cannot get their message across in an engaging and timely way then the value to the audience quickly declines.

All speakers, panellists, moderators and facilitators, no matter how experienced, need a level of pre-event information and preparation to help the organisers and speakers achieve their aims.

After experiencing both extremes of the spectrum (from conferences where speakers received the barest of details about the logistics, to the expertly-managed TED and TEDx conferences which are renowned for their speaker preparation process), I’m a proponent of providing speakers with support to prepare and deliver the best possible presentation. 

If you are organising an event and interested in providing additional speaker preparation for some or all speakers, please get in touch to discuss possibilities.

Or, if you are preparing to speak at an event, or just wishing to improve your overall presentation literacy, please get in touch. I wish to help speakers reach their goals, by helping define purpose, tailor and refine content and delivery, highlight key messages, and make best use of format and time.

My Experience

Speaker, attendee or volunteer at international multi-disciplinary events including:

I’ve gained insight by organising, hosting and facilitating events such as:

• TEDxNTU
• Future of Leadership Initiative
• Falling Walls Lab Singapore
• 3MT@NTU and 3MT@Singapore
• Numerous internal (university) conferences, workshops and other events.

“TEDx brings the spirit of TED’s mission of ideas worth spreading to local communities around the globe. TEDx events are organized by curious individuals who seek to discover ideas and spark conversations in their own community. TEDx events include live speakers and recorded TED Talks, and are organized independently under a free license granted by TED.”

TEDx Program