The current situation related to the COVID-19 virus also affects the implementation of the planned activities within the Slovenian Ambassador Program.
Following the successful launch of the Slovenian Ambassador Program (SAP) in 2019 and the award ceremony of the first honorary titles received by 25 Slovenian Congress Ambassadors, the Slovenian Convention Bureau organized the SAP Forum on January 22 as a part of this year’s Conventa Trade Show.
Prof. Ph.D., Albin Pintar, research professor, head of the Department for Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia and president of Slovenian Chemical Society and Prof. Ph.D., Tatjana Welzer Družovec, University of Maribor, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science (FERI), Institute of Informatics shared their experience in bidding, organizing and conducting scientific and professional congresses in Slovenia. The meeting was marked by a discussion on the challenges of bidding for international scientific and professional events and provided support from local meeting suppliers and partners.
The second event this year was planned for 1 April, but due to circumstances with the spread of virus COVID-19, we were forced to postpone it to a later date. We wanted to invite guest speaker Mr Gašper Hrastelj, representative of the Slovenian National Commission for UNESCO and one of the representatives of the IRCAI Center, to present our ambassadors the first International Research Center of Artificial Intelligence under the auspices of UNESCO = IRCAI, based in Ljubljana. The guests would share with us more information about the very reason and the goal of establishing a global artificial intelligence centre under the auspices of UNESCO in Slovenia. The Center will place Slovenia at the forefront of global technological developments.
The new date of the networking event will be announced at a later stage when the situation in Slovenia stabilizes again.
In March, the Slovenian Convention Bureau agreed with the destination ambassador clubs regarding the implementation of activities planned within Slovenian Ambassador Program for this year and the categories of Congress Ambassadors in 2020. Destination club networking events which were scheduled in the spring, were postponed at a later date, due to the current situation in the country and Europe overall.
This year’s, candidates for Congress Ambassadors of Slovenia can be nominated by destination clubs in cooperation with their local partners, colleagues from the institutions where they work, or they can fill the application by themselves.
Despite the current situation in Slovenia, we are looking for solutions for the successful implementation of planned activities. In the current situation, we will actively upgrade the database of Slovenian potential ambassadors and look for potential events for Slovenia for the coming years. We are aware of the difficult situation of all our members/partners, our ambassadors, as well as colleagues from the industry worldwide, but we believe that we will despite all survive this period and will only grow stronger together. Therefore, it is crucial that we carefully plan/prepare activities for the period when we can “reactivate” locally and internationally again.
For additional information you can contact:
Azra Botonjic, Manager of Slovenian Ambassador program
azra.botonjic@slovenia-convention.com,
+386 1 569 12 60
