JSPP2024: Initiatives to Expand Interaction Between Participants Using Virtual Space
On 16 September 2024, ahead of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Psychosomatic Pediatrics (JSPP2024, Congress Chair: Dr. Akira Nagai, National Center for Child Health and Development), a pre-conference reception was held on the Metaverse platform, MICE@TOKYO, an online space designed specifically for business events, operated by the Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau (TCVB).
This congress is held annually to discuss the latest case studies in pediatric psychosomatic treatment. This year, the Metaverse was utilized to increase communication and exchange opportunities for participants.
TCVB had the chance to interview Dr. Soken Go (Tokyo Medical University), Vice Chair of JSPP2024, about this metaverse reception.
Please tell us how and why you decided to hold this get-together using MICE@TOKYO.
In recent years, hybrid events have become the standard in scientific meetings, so even those who cannot travel to the event site can benefit from participating remotely.On the other hand, digital tools for hybrid events have yet to provide chance encounters with people and knowledge, which is one of the benefits of scientific meetings. We organized the reception in the Metaverse to bring a seamless meeting place for chance meetings to remote participants as well. Although improvements are still being made, we feel that the Metaverse reception was a success.
The reception utilized various methods to facilitate exchanges, such as setting discussion themes at each table. What was the response from the participants?
We were concerned that participants might have difficulty engaging with each other and could end up standing around, so we set a theme for each table. However, everyone seemed to interact well. The topics were useful starting points, but the participants were not bound by the theme and enjoyed talking freely among themselves.What are your takeaways regarding advanced technologies such as the Metaverse for conferences or congresses?
With the diversity of working styles these days, there is great demand for remote participation in scientific meetings. Based on our experience from this event, we feel that while the Metaverse is a good match for projects such as poster presentations, there are still issues to be addressed for workshops and other events that require more non-verbal communication. In the future, when a communication environment in which the facial expressions and movements of participants are directly relayed through their metaverse avatar in real-time is realized, we may finally see significant changes in how scientific meetings are organized.We also feel that content unique to virtual spaces may match specific scientific fields, and we have high expectations for how the technology will evolve in the future.
TCVB will continue to support the incorporation of cutting-edge technology in business events including international conferences and trade fairs, to promote efficiency and diversity in events going forward.