KUALA LUMPUR, 3 September 2020 – Malaysia’s Professional Congress Organisers (PCOs) and event professionals gathered for a direct engagement with the International Association of Professional Congress Organisers (IAPCO), Malaysia Convention & Exhibition Bureau and Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre on continued professional development and the newly launched virtual educational platform, IAPCO webEDGE.
A panel of three, Chief Executive Officer, IAPCO, Martin Boyle, who was present virtually, Tan Mei Phing, Director of Business Events, MyCEB, and Alan Pryor, General Manager, Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre and Chairman of Business Events Council Malaysia, discussed the importance of continued professional development and why Malaysia needs to address this skills shortage.
The IAPCO Congress Management Programme, IAPCO webEDGE, is aimed at up-skilling Malaysia’s professionals in order to deliver the highest standards of project management skills for Conference and Event delivery and to provide Malaysia with a competitive advantage when bidding for international events. The training models will provide core skills every project manager needs to deliver an international meeting.
Alan Pryor said, “It is so timely that this initiative has come to fruition as, now more than ever, up-skilling and diversification is more crucial than ever. With the continued impact of Covid-19 Malaysia is faced with small PCOs struggling to survive and even major PCOs in Malaysia have been impacted too. We find ourselves in a position with not enough internationally accredited PCOs to service international clients and large association congresses. This educational platform could not have been made available at a better time when the entire industry is in need of a massive rejuvenation as the world slowly steps into recovery mode. It is essential for PCOs especially now to help their clients to remain business resilient.”
Martin Boyle said, “IAPCO’s mission is to raise the standard of service amongst our Members and others in the meetings industry. It is an honour when we can do so with partners that share this mission and there are no better examples of this than in MyCEB and KLCC. IAPCO’s Training Academy has created a very unique multi-phase Continued Professional Development programme with MyCEB and KLCC that we believe will provide Malaysian meeting professionals with new training, knowledge and expertise so that they are better equipped to deliver in this ever-changing landscape and to compete internationally for the long-term.”
According to Tan Mei Phing said, “As an industry governing body, one of MyCEB’s primary mission is to strengthen and position Malaysia’s attractive business events proposition in an international market and, we recognise the need to develop and empower our event professionals to be on par with our regional and international counterparts, as a crucial pillar to fulfilling our objective. This educational partnership with IAPCO and KLCC is a reflection of MyCEB’s commitment and support to sustain our Business Events industry. The good news is we foresee a surge of events in Malaysia in the coming years and we strongly urge and encourage all event professionals to seize this golden opportunity to get ourselves armed and ready for future demand.”
Following the panel discussion, Barbara Calderwood, Divisional Lead Associations – MCI Group and Council Member of IAPCO, presented an introduction to IAPCO webEDGE which was followed by a workshop session to help participants identify their professional strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which will be used as a base in developing the custom training module for Malaysia.
The IAPCO Continued Professional Development programme, as part of Malaysia Business Events Week, a 4-day annual event, engaged with over 50 local PCOs and event planners following the first phase of the IAPCO webEDGE launch in May. The Continued Professional Development programme allows meeting professionals from any discipline to access a fully immersive 14-course congress project management package. The Congress Project Management Package is designed to equip meeting professionals with a full 360-view of meeting organisation delivered by various industry experts.
For more information on IAPCO webEDGE, visit https://www.iapco.org/iapco-education/webedge/
