Dr Lukasz Porwol of Insight at University of Galway is an expert on virtual reality and XR tech and is developing our understanding of how best to blend digital and physical reality through an interconnected infrastructure for business, schools, universities and other communities. He co-authored a paper in the journal Digital Government: Research and Practice examining the relative merits of virtual and in-person conferences, based on two events held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper, Facilitating Virtual Conferences: Reflections and Lessons Learned in Two Global Communities, shares the authors’ experiences in organising and running two conferences fully online due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. They elicit key observations from these experiences and elaborate upon salient properties of the virtual mode of delivery in comparison to in-person events. They highlight the challenges and the benefits of virtual conferencing, also considering these prospects in the context of possible hybrid solutions that must adapt to the fast-changing socio-technical reality of our global communities.

The research is a reflection on the implications of design and technology choices from two global communities that held their conferences virtually during the 2020 pandemic: the System Dynamics Society and the Digital Government Society.  Insights from these experiences may have immediate value for the design of other virtual events as public health imperatives for social distancing continue in the near term. Moreover, even after the pandemic is considered over, public and private organisations may find it beneficial to keep some of the features of the virtual experiences coupled with their in-person activity to increase the value delivered for their stakeholders in many different domains.

Dr Lukasz Porwol (Luke Porwol) is the E-Gov Unit Leader and a Research Fellow at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics, University of Galway. Dr Porwol is also an SFI Research Fellow at Fidelity Investments and the Head of Sponsorship at MIT Reality Hack, Boston, USA.