ABIM 2020

Dear IBMA Members

The ABIM Executive Board with the full backing of the ABIM Board of Directors have decided to conduct ABIM 2020 as a Virtual Exhibition and Conference. The Executive Board and Messe Basel have worked intensively in the past months exploring and evaluating ongoing conferences and the most advanced conference tools available today. We are now convinced that we will provide most of the crucial elements of the ABIM experience in a fully professional virtual environment.

After much consultation with some among you and others, we came to the conclusion that the only way to ensure we have a successful ABIM 2020 is to go entirely virtual. In this year of continued uncertainty largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we will conduct the event as a Virtual Exhibition and Conference.

Attendees will be able to access the exhibitors in the virtual exhibition booth, talk with the exhibitors live and leave questions for them to respond to, personalise their attendance in the event, hold scheduled and casual meetings, attend the conference sessions live and on-demand, participate in virtual workshops and do most of the activities that would normally be done at ABIM. By attending ABIM 2020 as a fully professional and interactive virtual event, there is no need to travel or stay away from the family, business and other commitments.

For those of you who have offered papers, speakers will be asked to present live. The programme is being adjusted to concentrate the sessions in the middle of the European day to make it feasible for people to speak from their home country without doing so in the middle of the night. We will probably also be asking to make a pre-recording of all talks meaning we will need the presentations earlier than in previous years. We will finalise timelines during August but it is likely all presentations will be needed by the end of September. Speakers in plenary sessions will be asked to participate in a Q&A session.

We aim to add interesting information to the website over the next few months to help everyone make the most out of this new format for ABIM 2020 and to arrive at the virtual event ready to participate. We are also extending the early bird registration scheme until 31st August 2020, to allow members to benefit from the discount on offer after knowing the format that ABIM 2020 will take and what it offers you and your company.

Best regards and looking forward to a successful fully professional ABIM 2020,

Lucius Tamm, Anne Merz, David Cary, Jennifer Lewis,

ABIM AG Executive Board