Jan Tonkin, president of IAPCO, was delighted to present the 2015 Innovation Award to Yoshihito Takahashi from Congress Corporation, Japan at the glittering IMEX Gala evening.
The IAPCO 2015 Innovation awards submissions were impressive. They highlighted the fantastic calibre of candidates who are really focusing on creative and efficient ideas, which can give clients added value. The shortlisted candidates were presented to the IAPCO members in Cape Town at the Annual Meeting and thus the voting finalised.
Yoshihito’s innovation was an app, which streamlined the process of participant attendance for lunch seminars. This ensured that there were none of the dreaded queues and delegates could check availability for the seminars in real time, all with the added bonus of being completely paperless. “Thank you very much for this prestigious award. I am very happy that my innovation was evaluated in this way by IAPCO, that sets the standards for our industry,” said Yoshihito Takahashi, Congress IT Director of Congress Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, “This is a great honor and will stimulate me to strive even harder to come up with more beneficial technology for our industry that is constantly evolving, into the future”.
The runners-up for the award, both of whom deserve a special mention for their innovative concepts, were Martin Rasmussen, Copernicus Meetings, with PICO: Presenting Interactive Content, and Gaia Santoro, AIM Group International, who created an event within an event using social media.
Innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any organisation and this award really shows that IAPCO members are embracing the whole concept.
