One of international education’s most important educator-agent networking events, the ICEF Berlin Workshop, was bigger and bolder than ever this year, with close to 2,000 delegates descending on the German capital for a three-day event aimed at forging new business relationships and ideas within international education. Many seasoned delegates seemed amazed at the stature of the event, with more space at the Intercontinental Hotel eaten up by a bigger than ever array of exhibitors, educators and agencies.
Seminars kicked off the programme on the first day, while trade association, ALTO, simultaneously held a professional development event featuring Futurist, Gerd Leonhard. The next two days saw intensive meetings between educators and education agencies from 94 countries, using a new format of 25-minute slots, expanded on the 20-minute timeframe used previously.
According to ICEF, 1,941 participants attended this year, a 7% increase on last year. They represented 1,298 educational organisations and agencies.
Rod Hearps, Vice President of ICEF, said the growth at the 17th event in Berlin reflected the “buoyancy of the international education industry”. He added that agents were more optimistic about sending students abroad than they had been for three years, as evidenced by the ICEF Agent Barometer results released at the workshop during one of the seminar sessions.
Attending the workshop for the tenth consecutive year, Gek Lee Stevens, consultant at Global Education Resources, said: “This event is getting larger and larger… This one I come to to meet new people and old friends. It’s like a reunion each time.”
“The event has been extremely productive from a business point of view, and also socially because we have met with old friends and partners,” commented Silvia Lefley, Academic Manager at the International Academy at the University of Essex.
Alexandra Abela from the Malta Tourist Authority added, “ICEF is a lovely experience and it gives Malta the exposure we’d like to have as an EFL destination. There was increasing interest this year and I think our sponsorship has given us more exposure overall.”
