The Asia Pacific Incentives and Meetings Event (AIME) has announced details of its highly anticipated Knowledge Program for 2023 which will include an address from Australian tennis star, Jelena Dokic.
The Knowledge Program will launch AIME on 13 February 2023. It will see a mix of industry business leaders and renowned professionals as well as keynote speakers from Saxton Speakers Bureau (Saxton) and ICMI Speakers & Entertainers (ICMI). This is in addition to breakout sessions which are designed for event professionals working across corporate, association, not-for-profit, and supplier sectors.
The program theme for 2023 is Your Industry. Your Opportunity. What is the opportunity for the events industry now? and will ask how, after much upheaval, renewal and refocus, the business events sector can emerge stronger and more important. Major industry discussion points around the future of work, how to build resilient cultures, what to do in a crisis, upskilling, and wellness will be discussed.
The program will be hosted by industry leader, El Kwang, Chief Commercial Officer at The Venues Collection, AIMEbassador, and Chair of the Knowledge Program Advisory Committee. Confirmed speakers for the day include Professor Ben Hamer and Jelena Dokic. Professor Hamer is one of Australia’s few accredited futurists, author of The Kickass Career, and will be sharing his expert insights on the Future of Work in the opening keynote. Australian tennis legend, Dokic, will draw on her extraordinary life experience to deliver an important talk about well-being and resilience.
Speaker sessions will be complemented by EQ (emotional intelligence) and IQ (intelligence) streams, designed to address both the hard and soft skills needed to thrive in the business events industry. The day will end with associations setting the vision for the future of the industry. Music from SongDivision will bring learnings from the day to life.
In anticipation of her keynote, Dokic said: “It is wonderful to see an industry putting health, wellbeing and resilience front-and-center. It is clear the business events industry is moving at breakneck speed and these themes could not be more timely. Building resilient workforces will permeate the future of workplace dialogue and I am pleased to be part of this movement.”
New for AIME 2023 is the Knowledge Program Advisory Committee. Eight leaders from the Asia Pacific meetings and events industry have, for the first time, curated all program content ensuring discussions will leave attendees more invigorated than ever before.
Anna Patterson, Founder, Sight, and member of the committee is confident the program will spark interest, stir debate and engage all areas of the events industry: “We are at a pivotal point in our industry’s trajectory and we need to think more about the future. The Knowledge Program is about empowering people by sharing experiences and focusing on the opportunities for what’s next. It’s a privilege to be a part of AIME for the 30th anniversary and help guide this program,” she said.
Silke Calder, AIME Event Director, is proud of AIME’s education program, which both enriches and enhances the APAC business events community: “On the back of a monumental 2022, everyone is starting to feel the ‘burn’. Event planners more than ever are having to balance the practical skills of event planning with the more humanistic qualities which build connections within our workplaces and our events. We have kept this front of mind when curating the 2023 Knowledge Program, selecting a diverse range of speakers and sessions to create space for us as individuals, and together as an industry, to inspire leadership, creativity and map a better path forward.”
AIME’s Knowledge Program will kick off AIME on Monday 13 February 2023. AIME 2023 will run from 13 –15 February at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre (MCEC). Visitor Buyers wanting to attend the Knowledge Program can upgrade their tickets.