14th MOHAMM Annual Congress – A Hybrid Medical Conference

Ministry of Health, Malaysia, and the Academy of Medicine jointly hosted the 14th MOH-AMM Scientific Congress in conjunction with the 23rd NIH Scientific Conference. After two years of hiatus in in-person events, the organizers wanted to host the conference in a physical medium. At the same time, they wanted to throw it open to those who were unable to be present physically. The ideal solution was to host the conference in hybrid mode.

The organizing committee found the ideal solution in partnering with Samaaro. They wanted the hybrid event to be informative, interactive and engaging which would engage the on-site and remote attendees in equal measure. In this case study, we’ll take you through the event objectives, initial challenges, and the solutions we provided to make the 14th MOH-AMM Scientific Congress a grant success.

Project Info:

Project Info:

Organizers: Ministry of Health, Malaysia and Academy of Medicine

Category: Hybrid Conference

Date: 19th-21st July

Event Objectives of MOH-AMM Scientific Congress

Two years of battling with Covid had put the efforts to tackle other major health problems, such as Non-communicative Diseases (NCDs), on the back burner. To bring the focus back to NCDs, the organizers invited different stakeholders – academics, healthcare professionals, and policymakers – from around the world to share new research findings and insights with the audience as well as deliberate on ways to tackle the challenges.

Concurrently, the organizers were also hopeful that a common platform for knowledge-sharing and idea exchange would greatly empower local communities by enhancing their health-literacy level and have a positive impact on health outcomes.

Lastly, capitalizing on the hybrid event’s ability to connect in-person and virtual attendees, they were hopeful that a common platform will enable participants to reconnect with colleagues as well as make new connections with their international peers.

Challenges Faced by the Organizers

With this set of goals in mind, the organizers were faced with multiple challenges –

• As they were expecting international participants, different payment gateway integrations were required for a smooth and hassle-free registration process.
• Providing an interconnected event to on-site and remote attendees was a major concern for the organizers.
• Lag-free and high-quality live streaming of the sessions was a must for ensuring a seamless event experience.
• The organizers wanted to establish a two-way communication channel between speakers and attendees to make the sessions more interactive and collaborative.
• Lastly, similar to in-person events, they wanted to offer CPD points and e-certificates in the hybrid conference as well.

Solutions Provided for an Engaging and Interactive Hybrid Conference

Custom Landing Page and Event Registrations

First off, a dedicated event landing page was created with custom domain hosting to drive interest and hike up registrations. The landing page offered a sneak peek into the event with the most important details and the right context, such as an overview of the agenda, schedule, the speakers, location, time, and registration fee made available on the page.

The conversion-focused CTA & QR-enabled registration process helped turn interest into action. The organizers received over 700 registrations in the very first week. For faster check-outs and ensuring successful transactions, various payment gateways were integrated into the registration page. Attendees could choose from any one payment method and easily register for the event.

Welcome Lobby

A custom-themed virtual lobby was designed to welcome the attendees to the conference. All the relevant event related information such as programme book, plenary speakers’ list, organizing committee members were made available in the lobby.

An info desk was also placed in the lobby. Attendees could get in touch with the organizing committee members from the info desk.

The lobby also served as a navigation point to different spaces across the platform. Virtual attendees could simply bookmark the lobby and from there visit all the spaces.

Exhibition Wall & Exhibitor Booths

The exhibitor wall displayed all the booths in the platform. Attendees could visit specific exhibitor booths by clicking on the banner.

Exhibitors were given total freedom to change and modify the look and feel of the booth to match it with their brand guidelines. Furthermore, they were allowed to upload product videos, and documents and add booth representatives to address queries from visitors.

Each booth was equipped with a meeting scheduler and direct chat options. Any interested visitor could get in touch with the exhibitor’s team and book a meeting instantly. The direct chat feature helped exhibitors connect with the attendees in a more personalized way.

Live Streaming Parallel Sessions in Auditoriums

The three-day hybrid conference had multiple sessions in the agenda.

The Auditoriums served as the main stages for the event. Two conference rooms were incorporated into the platform for hosting parallel sessions. There were around 40 sessions including 5 plenary sessions and 9 symposiums delivered by 40 speakers.

Proceedings from the on-site sessions were streamed live inside the auditoriums. Virtual speakers were enabled to join in via Zoom link. We offered zoom integration support for conducting sessions with on-site speakers and virtual speakers. Delegates from WHO, Imperial College of London,  University of Warwick joined in via zoom link and delivered their sessions.

To make the session livelier and engaging for the virtual attendees, a Q&A box was added. The Q&A feature enabled virtual attendees to interact with speakers. They used this opportunity to ask questions, clear doubts, discuss solutions. Closed captions were also available to make the sessions more inclusive and accessible to overseas attendees.

E-Poster Presentations:

In any academic conference, poster presentations are crucial. Attendees look forward to this opportunity for sharing their latest research with their peers and receive feedback from them. The organizers of MOH-AMM wanted to offer the same opportunity to remote attendees. They wanted to enable virtual participants to submit their posters and view other posters as well.

They received a whopping 221 poster submissions and were initially concerned about how virtual poster presentations would roll out during the event. But Samaaro’s user-friendly UI made it as easy as possible. Moreover, clear guidelines were laid out to remove any confusion on the day of the event.

Our team designed a separate space for poster presentations. The look and feel of poster boards for in-person conferences were retained. Attendees were allowed view and save the posters in virtual swag bags for visiting later. They were also allowed to download the posters.

Results

• The event received 870 registrations from around the world.
• A total of 196 posters were submitted and 337documents were downloaded during the event.
• 128 connections were made during the three-day conference.

Conclusion

We hope that the hybrid conference case study has offered you some actionable insights that you can utilize in your next event. For more in-depth discussion and suggestions, get in touch with us for an expert chat. Samaaro is an award-winning virtual events platform helping clients host successful virtual and hybrid events and reach their business goals. Book a free personalized demo tour today.

Client Feedback

“We were extremely pleased with the experience we had with Samaaro’s virtual event platform. The whole platform was customized according to our needs and the sessions were engaging with various games, polls and quizzes. The event was distinguished by the exhibition booths and data analytics dashboard, which helped us generate ROI. Thank you Samaaro, for helping us host an important yet insightful event. “