The INIT User Group Meeting was originally planned to take place in Karlsruhe 26 – 28 May 2020. But COVID-19 entered our life as a real game changer and made it impossible to stick to this plan. Nonetheless, INIT never considered cancellation. Consequently, we went the extra mile to develop a concept that transferred all essential parts of an INIT User Group Meeting, along with the full scheduled content, into a virtual format for the benefit of our customers. The result? A virtual user group meeting that exceeded all expectations.
Part one was an Online Conference on 27 May. It provided an overview from INIT about the most important innovations and focused on the future of mobility as well as the solutions to get us there. According to the meeting’s theme “Together.Designing.Mobility.” it dealt with the question of how public transport providers will be able to master the challenges of the upcoming years and shape the future of mobility with the support of their technology partner. Speakers examined various trends like digitalisation, accessibility, efficiency, system evolution, intermodality and electromobility.
Two livestreams, one in English, one in German, informed customers ranging from the UAE to the US west coast about the latest developments with INIT. 2 cameras, 5 technicians, 2 interpreters, many INIT staff and impressive technical equipment allowed for a worldwide high-end stream of the online conference. The following day offered the opportunity to discuss these topics further with INIT experts and other participants in virtual meeting rooms.
Many of the presented topics, and even more, were further explored in webinars during June. The online events offered INIT customers the highly appreciated expert information usually provided by the product focus sessions. 7 English and 8 German webinars covered nearly all relevant topics currently discussed in public transport.
The complimentary compact seminar on electromobility was held as well in the form of webinars. As the time frame was more flexible, now that there was no fixed meeting schedule to adhere to, it was possible to offer even more content than initially planned with the in-person User Group Meeting. The result was a series of 4 webinars in each language. A real benefit that INIT was able to offer customers due to the virtual format of the User Group Meeting.
Head of Department Corporate Marketing
INIT SE
Germany
This article was published in our customer magazine INITiative, issue 1/2020. If you want to receive the magazine regularly per e-mail, we kindly ask you to subscribe.
