CEDA Forum 2013: Report (The Netherlands)

CEDA rang the changes with its Forum this year, which took place at Ahoy Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 7 November 2013.

Following WODCON XX held between 3 and 7 June 2013 in Brussels, Belgium, and including some 100 technical presentations CEDA saw its presence at Europort 2013 as the perfect opportunity to organise an event with more interaction and networking, which would allow the delegates to engage fully with each other and with the content.

All the elements, from the announcement fliers to the meeting room setup and, most importantly, the programme design, were geared towards bringing this experience to delegates while maximising knowledge-sharing.

The Forum’s main components were two workshops, each on an important specialist subject.

– The morning workshop, Working under exotic circumstances, considered the safety issues and challenges facing those who have to work in remote, hostile areas. Content was focused on working in the Arctic.

– The topic of the afternoon workshop was Large marine infrastructure projects and the EU Habitats Directive: lessons learned.

During the day there was plenty opportunity for participants to engage with each other and the content.

“This is an experiment and we made you pay for it,” joked Johan Pennekamp at the beginning of the morning workshop. “We embarked on this experiment in response to CEDA members wanting more interaction at our events”, explained Anders Jensen, CEDA president. “We can say with confidence that the experiment has worked well. We have learned a lot and we will certainly see more opportunities for structured engagement in our future events”, he added.

CEDA Forum 2013 was complemented by table top displays and ended with the popular CEDA Netherlands Reception.

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Press Release, November 28, 2013