3 Different Hats, 2 Lessons, 1 Conference

An enriching experience of being a Presenter, Session Coordinator and Lead Rapporteur at an International Conference

On July 26 and 27, Soaltee Hotel in Kathmandu bustled with over 500 entrepreneurs, educators, policy makers, industry experts, researchers, students and media professionals. They were all gathered for Nepal Entrepreneurship Forum II conference themed "Towards Sustainable Entrepreneurship". The mission of the convention was to create a pivotal platform to explore sustainable business practices, foster innovative solutions, and connect the entrepreneurial community with the vision of creating a more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable economic environment. King's College and Center for Research and Development (CERAD) organized the conference. New Business Age and Abhiyan later joined hands as co-organizers for the event.

In this conference, I had the good fortune of wearing three different hats.

First, and I would say that is the most important for me as a budding researcher is that of a presenter. For any researcher or writer it is an opportunity to present their ideas in front of other people. Usually, research and writing is a lonely job. However, platform like these recognize and bring researchers and writers who are working towards creating innovative solutions to existing problems. It also celebrates the ones who are quietly doing their jobs without much fanfare.

At first both me an my co-author for our paper Umes Shrestha , Head of Center for Innovative Pedagogy and Learning (CIPL) were skeptic of whether we should present at the conference as it was focused on more on education rather than entrepreneurship. However, our paper, "Reflective Journals of Classroom Observations and its impact on Teacher's Professional Development," aligned with one of the sub-themes and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 that is Quality Education. Further, we proposed a framework for classroom observation through this research which was innovative solution for educational institutions.

Second, I coordinated a session, "Integrating Social Economy in Sustainable Development Goals". This was the first experience for me and I made sure that I understood the role well and did a good job. I had emailed all the papers to both the session chair and commentators beforehand. Even though there were some miscommunication before the session, I made sure that things went smoothly from my end.

Third, and the most exciting role was being a Rapporteur Lead along with Sushant Rijal . Both I and Sushant have enough experiences of reporting at conferences. Before entering academia, I was in corporate communication and media. These experiences along with our teaching experience came in handy while working with a bunch of young and enthusiastic team.

So, what are the 2 lessons that I learnt from this conference?

1. The Curse of Knowledge

I recognized I had curse of knowledge at this point while dealing with students. For me writing about a session at a conference is fairly easy job. However, it was a struggle for some students even though we had given them orientation before the conference. Learning a new information takes attention and eye for detail. Later with practice of staying at multiple sessions and writing about them, some students started enjoying it and even said that the session should have been 5 days long and not just 2 days long!

2. "Experts see what is not there"

Towards the end of the conference we had an expert summarize the session. Even though he was not present in the conference, he quickly read the summary of all the sessions, sat with the team of rapporteurs and then prepared his speech. He created a quick mind map and put in pointers of what happened during the conference. He delivered the final speech as if he was present the whole time. This got me thinking about how experts see what is not there and recognize patterns which novices are not able to. The students were overwhelmed when they were presented with a lot of new information, however it was a normal thing for experts.

This point is explained in detail in the book How Learning Happens, Paul Krishner and Carl Hendrick .

Overall, it was insightful to be a part of an international conference as a presenter, session coordinator and lead rapporteur. The most interesting thing for me is to see theories pulled out of the ivory tower and come to life, young people thinking of innovative solutions but at the same time sticking to the fundamentals.

I am grateful to the organizing team at CERAD Chittaranjan Pandey Sagun Baba Shrestha Meghanath Dulal Shreeka Bhatta and Dristant Chandra Bhatta for trusting me with these responsibilities Sarika Bhaukaji for your coordination and everyone at King's College Nepal and event organizers who made this experience enriching.