SportAccord Finalizing Programs -- Conference & Conventions

(ATR)SportAccord announces details for both its LawAccord and CityAccord conference programs ahead of next month’s edition in Gold Coast, Australia.

Malcolm Speed, the former CEO of Cricket Australia and the International Cricket Council, will give the LawAccord Keynote Address: Good Governance is Crucial to the Success of Sport Organizations – but is Great Governance possible?

"Over the past four decades, I have attended approximately 4000 sports meetings and have chaired about half of them. I have seen outbreaks of great governance from time to time," Speed said in a statement. "At LawAccord, we will dig deeper and try to diagnose, define, refine and challenge the concept of great governance."

Organizers say other LawAccord sessions throughout the day will include the annual Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Update presented by Secretary General Matthieu Reeb; a fireside chat with World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) President Craig Reedie; and a discussion on the fight against match-fixing.

LawAccord will be held on May 6 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in Queensland, Australia.

The CityAccord conference program takes center stage on May 7. Paul Yeomans, Managing Director, PMY Group, an independent technology strategy, investment and management company, will give the Keynote Address: Rise of the Smart Stadium. An audience question and answer period will follow the address.

"CityAccord is a unique opportunity for cities, regions and sport commissions to expand their horizons by hearing from some of the world's foremost experts on various aspects of hosting major events," said co-chair David Simon, who is senior advisor for the Los Angeles Sports Council.

"This is especially true of this year's program, whose theme is 'Mindful Event Hosting: Respecting the Past with a View to the Future."'

Three additional conference streams - SportAccord Summit, HealthAccord and MediaAccord - will take place during SportAccord, which runs from May 5-10.

Future events and host cities for the SportAccord organization include Regional SportAccord Pan America which is set to take place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from December 10-12, 2019 and SportAccord 2020 in Beijing from April 19-24, 2020.

THE SPOT a Showcase for Start-Ups

The second edition of THE SPOT will again feature opportunities for start-ups in the fields of sport, physical activity or technology to showcase themselves.

ThinkSport’s sport and innovation event will be back at the the SwissTech Convention Center in Lausanne on May 28-29. More than 1,000 people from the words of sport, academia, and business are expected to attend.

About 80 start-ups are expected to line up in a head-to-head battle, operated by Venturelab. Organizers say they will compete for prestige, financial support and attractive opportunities to work with respected companies. The judges for the competition will be experts from the academic, business and sports world.

There will be two different categories, one for early stage start-ups who will pitch their innovative ideas as discovery projects and another one for more mature start-ups who will present their ready-to-use products.

"The start-up battle at the first edition of THE SPOT got a lot of adrenaline pumping and was a big hit. This year, we are keen to give even more young entrepreneurs from our region and abroad the chance to present their innovative ideas and solutions," said Anna Hellman, Director of ThinkSport.

THE SPOT will also feature a conference program around four topics featuring athletes, industry, society and entertainment.

Tickets at an early bird rate are still available here.

Paula Radcliffe to Headline PCC London 2019

Paula Radcliffe will be the headline speaker at the Partnership for Clean Competition London 2019 Conference this month.

Organizers say the conference has an athlete focus unprecedented for an anti-doping event.

Joining the world record holder and three-time London marathon winner will be a cast of athletes, sports administrators, scientists and legal experts including former Cross-Country Skiing Olympic Champion and current World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Athlete Chair, Beckie Scott; Rio 2016 Paralympic Silver Medalist, Ali Jawad; Olympic Champion Cyclist Callum Skinner and leading American long-distance runner, Kara Goucher.

Former WADA Director General David Howman will open the three-day conference on April 16.

The conference is widely considered to be the go-to event on the sports integrity calendar.This is the first time it is being held outside the United States. The first four editions were held in New York.

Radcliffe will speak on April 18, closing out the event, which is being held at King’s College London.

To secure one of the final remaining spots at PCC 2019, register here.

Host City Asia Fast Approaching

The second edition of Host City Asia is April 11 at Beijing’s Four Seasons Hotel.

Those confirmed to attend include Beijing Olympic City Development Association, Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Shanxi Provincial Sports Bureau, Zhangjiakou City Economic Development Zone, Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and Tokyo Metropolitan Government.

Paris Deputy Mayor Jean-Francois Martins, who is in charge of Tourism, Sports and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Yasunobu Nishimura, Deputy Director General of Bureau of Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 Preparation, have joined a list of speakers who will be representing future Olympic host cities.

Organizers say 200 international event rights owners, Asian event hosts, organizing committees, and experts are set to participate under the conference theme of "Faster, Higher, Stronger: Growth through Event Hosting".

Agenda topics include the impact of AI, big data and blockchain on the events sector, integrating event infrastructure planning into city plans, and how to engage young people in sports and culture events.

With a mix of panel discussions, keynote addresses and case studies, Host City Asia will highlight the issues and opportunities facing everyone in the major events business.

SportsPro Live Transformed for 2019

Organizers for this year's SportsPro Live say the event is undergoing its biggest transformation to date.

More than 700 delegates are expected for the sixth edition, which will be held at The O2 in London on April 30 and May 1.

There will be 75 speakers across 50 sessions and tech demos.Former IOC member Angela Ruggiero, who is the CEO and co-founder of Sports Innovation Lab, will be speaking on tracking trends in sports investment.

The event will feature what organizers say is "a future-focused sports agenda looking at the meeting point between tech, business and fandom".

Alongside the main agenda, five new specific forums have been added, including finance, artificial intelligence, esports, digital transformation and broadcasting.

The artificial intelligence forum will include speakers from Intel, Red Bull Media House and ATP Media.

ISC 2020 Heading to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium

The 2020 edition of the International Sports Convention (ISC) will be held at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.

The stadium, which was supposed to open nine months ago, hosted its first competitive match on Wednesday when Spurs defeated Crystal Palace 2-0 in the English Premier League.

ISC 2020 will be at the stadium on June 17-18, 2020, coinciding with the second week of UEFA EURO 2020. The event will feature nine sports conferences including Sports Digital, Digital Disruption in Football, OTT Sports, and Sports Sponsorship.

"The move to this unique entertainment and sporting venue will provide delegates around the world with the best possible sports business event experience," Nigel Fletcher, CEO of the International Sports Convention, said in a statement.

The ISC notes that there will be other networking events in London during the same week, including Sport and Sustainable Development Goals Summit and Women in Sports Business Summit.

Other Conferences:

April 11: HIVE Esports Business Conference in Berlin

May 23-24: Soccerex China inHaikou, Hainan Province

May 29-30:Intersport Brand Engagement & Content Summit in Chicago

June 13: Sports Digital Business Networking Seminar in London

June 24-26: Los Angeles Sports Summit

June 25-27: Major Events Summit in Birmingham, UK

Aug. 29-31: Sport India 2019 in New Delhi

Sept. 4-7: VISTA 2019 in Amsterdam

Sept. 5-6: Soccerex Europe in Oeiras, Portugal

Sept. 10-12: Esports Business Summit in Las Vegas

Nov. 14-16: Vietnam Sport Show 2019 in Hanoi

Nov. 18-20: Sports Business Japan/Stadia & Arena 2019 in Saitama, Japan

Nov. 25-27: Host City 2019 in Glasgow, Scotland

Dec. 10-12: Regional SportAccord Pan America in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Written by Gerard Farek

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