Situation/Challenge

The agriculture sector is at the nexus of climate change, food and nutrition, water and soil, and sustainable livelihoods. Therefore, the sector has a key role in creating more resilient supply chains, restoring soil health, and enabling green-livelihood opportunities at scale. The increasing adoption of Internet of Things enabled devices and rising use-cases of technology within agriculture, have enabled innovative solutions for collaborative action. There are multiple examples of the use of innovative technologies or agtech solutions across different regions. However, there is a lack of a global platform to enable information exchange among the wider ecosystem involving, governments, agtech companies, agri corporates, DFIs, academia, institutes etc. Hence, there is a need for organizing a virtual global event with a wider reach to facilitate deep learning and engagement among agri-food system and technology sector stakeholders to further the impactful, responsible, and appropriate use of digital technology in the agriculture sector, with a particular focus on LMICs.

Solution:

With the aim of implementing the ICTforAg 2022, to make it more robust than the previous years in terms of greater outreach and more engagement among stakeholders, Intellecap developed a detailed event and knowledge management work plan. This work plan focused on five critical success factors, viz. quality content that is differentiated from the existing ones, deeper engagement with the audience, potential for networking, ease of the interface, and seamless event execution. Intellecap’s implementation plan for the event had three phases.

Intellecap had undertaken pre-announcement planning as part of the first phase of this engagement, with the implementation team focusing on finalising the conference concept note, consulting with the advisory committee to shape the high-level agenda, and financing plans for communication, outreach, and conference co-funding and sponsorship. During this phase, we conducted dipstick assessments and consultations to identify potential topics for the sessions and undertook comparative analysis of different hosting and registration platforms, among other activities. The outcome of this phase resulted in the development of the event website and the first set of outreach collaterals. During this phase, the team also developed suitable sponsorship packages and strategies to reach out to the potential partners.

In the second phase, Intellecap operationalized the engagement and communication plan, developed knowledge content for the conference, finalized the agenda, and focused on raising co-funding and sponsorships. For higher engagement of the client and regular updates on activities, the Intellecap team conducted a weekly update call with the clients. During this phase, the team reached out to various speakers across the globe to invite session ideas and discuss sponsorship opportunities. The team developed detailed session plans for each, consisting of the session description, key questions sought to be answered, priority moderators and speakers, session formats, preferred time slots, and a minute-by-minute for the session. The team integrated the client’s feedback into the session plans and formally commenced outreach to speakers to on-board them. Apart from the knowledge session, the Intellecap team also organized a technology showcase by inviting innovative solution providers across LMICs to share their ideas. These ideas are further evaluated across the set parameters, and the top 30 Agtechs were selected for the virtual technology showcase. Similarly, to create buzz about the conference and to witness a larger number of young participants in the conference, Intellecap also conducted a Youth Ambassador Program. In this program, 20 youth from different regions of the globe were selected and onboarded to share their ideas and increase the outreach of this event. In this phase, the Intellecap team undertook focused outreach to Agtechs and Agri corporates to pitch sponsorship plans. The team was successful in onboarding “Tetra Tech”- an innovative agtech based in the USA, to sponsor a session at the conference. Finally, at the end of phase 2, the team conducted a run-through with vendors including the conference platform and audio-visual team.

During the last phase, which is implementation of the conference and undertaking post conference activities, the team developed a detailed agenda management framework for the conference—”Play by Play.” The framework contained details on every aspect related to the agenda, along with the point of contact and status, like, session details, speaker details, session management, and platform details. This real-time framework ensured that details were updated regularly and aligned with the estimated deadlines. Any delay or gap in the target vs. actual deadlines was highlighted and rectified immediately. The Intellecap team successfully organized the conference and carried out post-conference activities, which included sharing feedback forms with the participants, editing and uploading the session videos, and responding to the queries of the participants. The team also conducted a post-event webinar to discuss the key learnings from the conference and steps to make this conference better in the coming editions. Finally, the team shared a detailed post-event report capturing the key learnings and recommendations with the client.