view from the chair The 16th Asian Battery Conference will be held in Bangkok, Thailand. Wyn Jenkins spoke to conference organizer and chair of the event, Mark Stevenson for a flavour of the meetings.
The four pillars of conference thinking: inform, educate, entertain ... and network too ABC chair Mark Stevenson — speaking to Batteries International in late June — said attendance was already looking good for the 16th Asian Battery Conference. More than 500 delegates are already registered with almost three months to go. “They are good numbers and I believe it\ll be extremely well attended,” he says. Some 122 booths have already been sold — a statistic illustrating the popularity of the event. “Singapore two years ago was a fantastic event — our attendees told us it was an outstanding success — but every year we aim to get better and surprise delegates with what we offer,” he says. “The numbers are going well again this year. It is not about breaking records for us because that is just one measurement of a good event but we are certainly delighted with the way things are shaping up so far this year.” Stevenson, who is technical manager for Asia for Ecobat Technologies, the world’s largest producer and recycler of lead, believes the growing popularity of the event is largely due to efforts made by the organizing committee in recent years to revitalise and reinvent the event. “It has always been a must-attend for many executives but we have also looked at how we can break the mould and keep pushing out the boundaries of what people can expect. This has had a great deal to do with our continued success and growth,” Stevenson says. Delegates will notice a big differ-
Conference chair Mark Stevenson: veteran of all ABC meetings
ence this year in the way the exhibition space operates and the way it looks. “The exhibition will not just be straight up and down — we hope to inject a few things including more colour and the way it is ordered. We want people to engage with it differently — it is a much bigger room and that allows us to do a number of things we have not done before.” More investment has gone on the staging and design of the platforms and the room where presentations will be made. Stevenson says: “Instead of simply having a stage and little else we are looking at things like better lighting
“It is not about breaking records for us because that is just one measurement of a good event but we are certainly delighted with the way things are shaping up so far this year.” 12 • Batteries International • 16th ABC Show Guide • Summer 2015
and maybe ways of bringing a different approach to that element of the conference — we would like to make it more interactive.” Another strand of this approach and desire to invigorate the event has involved efforts to get more young people involved in the event — or the new generation of battery entrepreneurs as Stevenson describes them. A team of 10-12 young students from an Australian university will attend the conference showcasing some of the work around energy management and storage they have done in relation to the World Solar Challenge — a competition in Australia whereby teams race from Darwin to Adelaide, a 3000km drive, using nothing but solar powered vehicles. Stevenson admits that the perception of many young people is that lithium-ion is the more exciting end of the battery world and they want to work in this space. One of his ambitions is to try and change this perception and showcase the many exciting developments in the lead-acid battery world in recent years. Stevenson says that despite the name of the event, and the fact it is always held in Asia, the conference is effectively a world event with executives from many countries attending. “It just happens to be in Asia,” he says. “Most of the presentations and issues are global in their nature. “A big part of its success is driven by the fact that we aim to always improve the programme, get better speakers in, make sure we have good entertainment and try and work with the best people wherever possible. “It used to be more of a dry, very technical conference but it has evolved a lot since its early days. It is now a rounded conference for the whole of the lead-acid battery world. We try to cater for everything, whether you are www.batteriesinternational.com