– Written by Saqwindar Singh, Principal Standards Lead at GSK
Background
Last year’s PHUSE EU Connect was full of firsts for me – from my first time attending a PHUSE event and being a Stream Chair, being an interactive session panel member and, finally, writing a blog post!
The first question I think people would ask me is: why did you want to attend the PHUSE EU Connect? For many years I’d seen my colleagues return from the conference full of energy and enthusiasm. I felt 2023 was the time for me to take part and meet with my industry peers and learn where we are moving towards as an industry.
The next question people might ask me is: why did you volunteer to be a Stream Chair? I have experience working on internal conferences, I’m organised and, most of all, I do like a challenge! And that’s exactly what being a Stream Chair is – a challenge: from reviewing and rating the abstracts, to ensuring the presentations and papers are ready in time for the conference.
In my role as Application Development Stream Chair, I learnt that clear and continuing dialogue between the Chairs and presenters is key. A Stream Chair needs to have a good overall picture of not just their Stream but of the conference as a whole and they need to be on hand to respond promptly to the numerous questions and requests.
Another question I might get asked is: why did you take part in the Neurodiversity Interactive Session? By this point, I had decided to go all out on my firsts for this conference. As an Inclusion and Diversity Champion at GSK, I jumped at the chance to take part. Being a Champion is a passion project of mine. I feel we are all on a journey to understand and learn from one another, and as an industry, we have made great progress. It was interesting to learn first-hand the challenges people face. I found the experience to be invaluable and I took several ideas back to our team of GSK Champions so we can build upon them further. My biggest learning point from the Neurodiversity Interactive Session was that making small changes can have a big impact.
At the EU Connect
As venues go, the ICC in Birmingham was impressive, and the staff were always helpful and did a great job at guiding people – at one point there were 600+ attendees, from veterans who had seen it all before to newbies like me, wondering what to expect. The tone of the conference was set from the very start: everyone I met was friendly, smiling and made you feel welcome. It was infectious and really helped to allay my nerves.
The three keynote speeches were all very different, but l left each session feeling energised for the day – and I now have lots of food for thought on how to approach my daily work.
As the Application Development Stream Chair, one of my favourite parts of the conference was the Presenter/Stream Chair Meeting. The room was full, which really gave me a sense of how important the EU Connect is to the wider industry. It was great to finally meet the Stream presenters and answer any remaining questions they had. It was such a sense of achievement as a Stream Chair to see so many attend the sessions and, most importantly, to observe the questions posed to the presenters.
Final Thoughts
Looking back at 2023, from volunteering to be a Stream Chair, to taking part in all the preparations, to the final in-person event, it was a great experience. I guess final questions would be: was it worthwhile? and would you do it again? I think you know the answers: YES, and YES!