We’ve regularly partnered with the Office of Healthcare Innovation and Learning at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to design and facilitate a three-day annual conference that brings together over 750 leaders working to advance healthcare innovation within the VA.
The goal of this annual conference is to strengthen collaboration, inspire new ideas, and create meaningful connections among healthcare professionals, researchers, and frontline staff dedicated to improving care for veterans. Throughout the conference, our team oversaw four critical parts to the event:
Emceed the full-group experience from the main stage at the start and end of each day
Designed and facilitated a “Connection Cafe” track which engaged hundreds of participants in intentional dialogue
Produced and oversaw interactive engagement booths, such as Live Print Mosaics that participants co-created throughout the event and immersive art exhibits featuring veteran artists
Coordinated pre-event support and coaching to speakers, presenters, and innovators
“This is the most connected I’ve ever felt from a VA event in my entire career – THANK YOU! I’m so grateful for the world-class support you’ve provided in coordinating the event, facilitating productive conversations and capturing the experience to maintain momentum.”
“This is the most connected I’ve ever felt from a VA event in my entire career – THANK YOU! I’m so grateful for the world-class support you’ve provided in coordinating the event, facilitating productive conversations and capturing the experience to maintain momentum.”
Conference Organizer
Conference Organizer
Creating a Conference That Moves from Inspiration to Action
We were brought on to elevate this annual conference into a more collaborative and engaging experience for attendees. As the emcee, we worked with speakers and co-presenters to reimagine the kick-off and close to each day. We incorporated interactive full group activities that included massive question swaps where participants were given Curiosity cards to exchange with others, and collaborative puzzles where each attendee found ways to connect the challenges they cared about with resources and skills throughout the room.
Connection Cafes: A Space for Collaborative Problem-Solving
In addition to emceeing the conference, our team designed and led the Connection Cafe, a dedicated track that connected VA leaders, innovators, and practitioners around specific collaborative challenges they were facing. Each Connection Cafe session was custom-designed to match the needs of different VA programs, units, and departments. This included:
- Pre-Event Coordination: We partnered with program leads to identify key challenges and co-design agendas tailored to their specific needs.
- Facilitated Collaborative Conversations: During each session, participants engaged in structured small-group discussions to share insights and explore solutions.
- Bridging Silos & Strengthening Networks: The Connection Cafes provided a rare opportunity for different VA teams to collaborate across regions and specialties, fostering new partnerships and uncovering shared priorities.
The Connection Cafe became a key part of the conference experience – ensuring that participants had a chance to translate the learning from other sessions into concrete relationships and next steps.
Coaching Speakers to Deliver Impactful Talks and Pitches
To highlight innovative work happening across the VA, the conference featured a series of lightning talks – but many of the speakers, while experts in their fields, were not accustomed to delivering short, high-impact presentations. We stepped in to provide 1-on-1 Speaker Coaching. Through dedicated coaching sessions, we transformed technical content into engaging and accessible talks, ensuring consistency and clarity across all speakers. We also designed visuals and graphics to enhance their storytelling.
We also worked with the organizers to secure keynote speakers for the conference and weave in participatory engagement ideas to the talks. For one of our keynote speakers, we embedded professional songwriters into our Connection Cafe track to listen for themes that emerged from the discussions. Overnight, they turned these themes into a song which was performed in front of the full audience on Day 2.
Another key feature of the conference was the VA Shark Tank event, where teams pitched innovative healthcare solutions to a panel of judges. To ensure that participants were fully prepared, we organized a pre-conference interactive session for participants to refine their pitches, meet with potential collaborators, and receive early feedback from preliminary judges. Our team also provided 1-on-1 coaching for each of the finalists to sharpen storytelling, clarify messaging, and ensure finalists delivered clear, compelling, and confident pitches.
Songwriters capture key themes from conference during keynote talk (starts at 28:00)
Recap Video of the 2024 iEX Conference
Designed an Interactive Mosaic to Spark Connections
In order to spark meaningful connections in the spontaneous moments of the conference (such as in the lobby, during check-in, and in-between breakout sessions), we designed an interactive mosaic which captured more than 1,500 connections made throughout the event. In the main foyer, we set-up a photobooth with printers and a large, blank grid. Each blank box represented a connection yet to be made and we challenged guests to fill the wall with photos of new connections they made.
Attendees eagerly started adding photos to the wall, and as the mosaic came together, people regularly checked back in on the progress. As a result, the wall naturally created a space where new connections were made as people gathered to post their photos and talk with one another. By the end of the event, we had a visual that was co-created by the participants representing the tangible connections and collaborations formed throughout the conference.
