Hybrid conferences are more inclusive – get with the programme as our professional institutions did for the Wales National Transport Conference earlier this month.

As the CIHT speaker, I presented on ‘From halcyon days to a brave new world’ in relation to the changing landscape for road investment in the context of a climate and nature emergency. My slides are available in this earlier post: https://lnkd.in/erEt2xmb

The conference organisers (keith jones, Andrew Potter and Gareth Smith) have now made available the recording from the event (my presentation kicks off at 49:35): –https://www.ice.org.uk/events/past-events-and-recordings/recorded-lectures/design-for-transport-in-wales

I was physically at the event in Cardiff along with around 100 other people. But there were a further 100 or so people who had joined online. When we got to Q&A after my presentation I was delighted when early career professional Felicia Bjersing popped up on screen as a remote participant.

Felicia was holding her baby and wanted to thank the organisers for making it a hybrid event, in the absence of which her caring responsibilities would have prevented her from participating. Of course with around half the participants not needing to travel to take part, the carbon footprint of the event benefitted too.

I appreciate that for some conferences the business model will work against a hybrid solution being offered but I do hope we are heading in a direction where we will see more events like this conference – a conference for which Felicia and her daughter were emblematic for me of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015.

Here’s to more engagement events that walk the walk when they convene us to consider climate action and EDI. Well done (again) Wales!