The 8th Edmonton Global Talent Conference drew an impressive gathering of participants (232) to the Fantasyland Hotel & Conference Centre which was held last Thursday, February 22nd, 2018.
This year celebrates the 10th anniversary of ERIEC and ERIEC’s Board chair Cindy Laporte welcomed the audience by highlighting various organizational milestones since we began back in 2008.
The ERIEC conference theme this year was Let’s Connect! Involving Others on Your Path to Success. The keynote was Omar Mouallem, who is a locally based bestselling author, award-winning journalist and media personality whose work has been read and listened to across the globe. His parents are of Lebanese heritage and inspired his recent work on issues related to refugees, racism and multiculturalism. In his keynote address, The Myth of the Self-Made Man, focused on how we all need people to help us achieve our dreams. “It is a myth that we can do it on our own; we do need friends, family and the whole community to forge our success story”, he states.
In support of this year’s conference theme, we had also had Nadine Riopel, creator of the We Hate Networking Club, facilitated a practical workshop entitled Getting People on Your Team: How to Build Trust. Nadine believes that a good network includes people who trust us enough to help us find jobs, make introductions or connections and can vouch in a number of ways. Her interactive session explored various techniques for building trust and supportive connections. She challenged the crowd to help them articulate a way in which participants can offer value both personally and professionally. She also had the group explore and articulate the value of “asking” as well as articulate the things that can hold people back from asking and had them name the single most effective factor in asking for trust building.
The following are a few quotes from the Conference participants who responded to our post-conference survey:
What was the most valuable thing you learned today?
“I learned that we should always considering what we can offer to a person rather than asking what you want from them.”
“To approach networking – how can I help you instead of how can you help me.”
“Networking is [the] key.”
Evaluation from the participants in 2018 Global Talent Conference who responded to the survey was the following:
- 93 % rated the Global Talent Conference 2018 as Excellent or Great.
- 79% responded that information that they gathered from the event in improving their networking skills was Extremely Helpful or Very Helpful
We are proud to share with our readers a few more thoughts from the survey which you may find interesting:
“The Global Talent Conference is the biggest platform to start with for a newcomer to Canada.”
“… I really enjoyed the conference it was informative and well-organized and this is the very first time in my whole life that I attended such an efficient workshop…”
“I am grateful with ERIEC for inviting me, the staff is very professional and always willing to help making us feel we are not alone in Canada”.
On behalf of ERIEC we would like to send a special “Thank You” to all of our sponsors and community partners as well as to all the exhibitors who showcased their products and services at this year’s Conference.
We would also like to thank Mr. Benjamin Ofori for his inspiring immigrant success story and Ms. Sarah Tangan for sharing her experiences as a newcomer to Canada.
Not surprising that one of the participants shared with us the following thought:
“This is a good event! I want to take part again next time…but as a success story.”
Unfortunately, the survey is anonymous and we do not know who this person is. However, we wish all the participants all the best in their professional career pursuits and hope that they too become our future success stories.