NFC World Congress

The NFC World Congress is looking for the world’s best NFC experts and speakers…

The preliminary agenda for the NFC World Congress is now out and we’re looking for proposals from potential speakers able to deliver expert-level technical, business or practical information to our delegates.

Four types of speaking opportunities are available, within both the main NFC World Congress event and the NFC Workshop:

• Lessons from the front line — Case studies from the payments, transit and non-payments arenas
• NFC Workshop guest presenters technical presentations from experts in the field
• Innovation showcase — Presentations from those pushing the boundaries of the NFC industry, in technology, applications or business design
• Discussion group leaders — Round-table workgroup leaders with specific expertise in a particular aspect of the NFC ecosystem from either a technical or business perspective.

Also scheduled to take place during the NFC World Congress are the NFC Leadership Panel, a presentation entitled Creating a successful NFC ecosystem — The business issues, a panel discussion Putting together the pieces of the jigsaw and two keynote presentations. These are being arranged on an invitation-only basis.

NOTE: Please take the time to read through the requirements for each type of speaking opportunity carefully and check out the guidance notes below before sending in your proposal.

Lessons from the front line

The morning of day one is scheduled to include five case studies from live field trials in the payments and transit arenas. We’re looking for:

• A truly international approach, with a good geographic spread of presentations from all parts of the world.
• Team-based presentations. Each case study should ideally include at least two and preferably three or more of the partners involved in running the trial.
• Each presentation should begin with an overview of the project (this can be from a supplier) followed by shorter presentations from each of the other project partners, such as the mobile operator and the card issuer plus perhaps a retailer or other partner, focussing on the business reasons they decided to take part in the project, the results so far and their future plans.
• Each presentation should run for 30 to 35 minutes, allowing five minutes for questions within the allocated 40 minutes for each project.

The afternoon of day one is scheduled to begin with four case study presentations looking beyond the payments arena at a range of emerging NFC application areas.

• We are looking for one presentation on each of the four key non-payments application areas — marketing & promotion, connectivity, content & information services and ID.
• These presentations can be made as a team by, for instance, a project manager and his supplier or by the end-user alone — but no supplier-only proposals, please!
• Each presentation should run for 20 minutes.

All speakers taking part in this session will receive a complimentary pass to both days of the NFC World Congress. Colleagues and project partners of speakers will also be able to attend the event for only 65% of the standard price.

Please see the NFC World Congress pages and the detailed NFC World Congress agenda for further information.

NFC Workshop guest presenters

The NFC Workshop will be led by Sarah Clark. It will be tightly structured to ensure that delegates at this introductory workshop receive a top flight education in NFC, its applications, the business issues and the technology.

The organisers plan to present the NFC Workshop on a regular basis in different locations and to different audiences.

Those taking part in this first NFC Workshop will be the presenter of preference at future NFC Workshops (subject to a successful first presentation) and they will have the option, subject to approval by the organisers, to nominate a suitable colleague — for instance, one based more locally to the venue — to present the topic at later dates.

Participation therefore offers the opportunity to establish your company as an international thought-leader in the field.

NFC Workshop guest presenters will receive a complimentary pass to all three days of the NFC World Congress. Colleagues and project partners of speakers will also be able to attend the event for only 65% of the standard price.

If you are interested in presenting a topic, you will be required to follow our guidelines in terms of the content of your presentation. In practice, this will mean working with Sarah Clark over the coming weeks to develop a best-in-class presentation and supporting materials.

The topics that we are looking for presenters to cover are:

• What is NFC and how does it work? — Introductory session (One speaker)
• The business case for NFC — Opportunities and market potential (One speaker)
• NFC applications — Current trials and future applications
  1. Payments and transit (One speaker)
  2. Non-payments (One speaker)
• How NFC Works
  1. NFC Technology — Tags, standards, chip design, handsets, security issues, likely future technical and pricing developments (One speaker)
  2. The NFC ecosystem — Elements, mobile systems (for payments people), payments systems (for mobile people), advertising, marketing and promotions, content systems, connectivity systems — wireless USB, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR etc (One speaker)
  3. NFC systems — Ways to run multiple party applications on one phone, trusted service managers, design considerations, project planning and system design (One speaker)
• Solutions and suppliers — Commercially available technical solutions, overview of the key players in the industry (One speaker — please note that this is an analyst/independent consultant-only presentation)
• Using NFC — Project planning, design considerations and options, best practice, business issues (One speaker)

Innovation Showcase

The morning of day two is dedicated to our Innovation Showcase, an opportunity for those working on the very latest technical or commercial ideas to present them to delegates.

• Our aim is to enable ten companies to take part in the Innovation Showcase, each with a ten-minute time slot to present their innovation.
• You should be the only organisation working on your particular innovation, or be able to clearly demonstrate that you are approaching the subject in a very different way.
• Innovators of all types are welcome — New technologies, new products, new applications and new business models are all welcome.
• Your innovation can be at any stage of development, although it is unlikely that a commercially available solution will meet the innovation requirement. You could be at the prototype stage, involved in small-scale field testing or still be on the drawing board. What’s important is that you are doing something that is pushing forwards the boundaries of NFC.

Discussion Group Leaders

During the afternoon of day two delegates will take part in a series of round-table discussion groups. During the session, each delegate will be able to join up to four of twelve or more discussion groups, each led by an expert in the topic under discussion.

Selection as a Discussion Group Leader is an excellent opportunity to raise your profile as an expert in your field and to network with others working in the same field of expertise as well as those looking for your particular type of expertise.

• Topics for round-table discussion will cover all aspects of the NFC ecosystem, from chip design to marketing & promotion, transit applications to connectivity standards and trusted service managers to retailer requirements.
• There is no presentation element to these round-tables. Discussion Group Leaders will be present in a consultative role to answer delegates’ questions and to keep the flow of the discussion moving.
• If you would like to be considered as a Discussion Group Leader, you will need to be able to clearly demonstrate that you have in-depth knowledge of your preferred topic, either as a project manager or technical specialist or through involvement in an NFC trial.

Guidance notes

1. Please read the requirements listed above carefully and then take a look at the NFC World Congress agenda and/or the NFC Workshop programme before submitting your proposal.
2. Proposals should be sent by email to the conference director, Sarah Clark, at sarah@globalsmart.com. Please feel free to call Sarah in the UK on +44 1600 715994 to find out more or to have an informal discussion regarding your possible proposal.
3. If you are chosen to take part either as a speaker or a Discussion Group Leader you will be asked to nominate a backup speaker who will present in your absence should you for any reason be forced to cancel at the last minute. If yours is a small company or you are the only person in your organisation working on NFC, a backup speaker from another company can be arranged for you by the organisers.
4. All speakers will be required to submit a detailed overview of the content of their speech one month in advance of the event to ensure that speakers do not go ‘off topic’ on the day and that there is going to be sufficient time available to perfect the presentation before the day.
5. Suppliers should note, please, that there are limited opportunities for suppliers to participate in the programme and, whilst it is absolutely not a requirement that you exhibit at The NFC Show in order to be considered as a speaker, first preference for these opportunities will be given to those who will be supporting their presentation with a presence in the exhibition hall. You can find out more about how to exhibit on our Why exhibit? page.
6. In this first year of a new event, all speakers will need to be able to cover their own travel costs to Brussels.
7. The closing date for receipt of proposals is 1 March 2009.

*Please note that details of content, speakers and timings are provisional and subject to change