How working closely with partners helped us host the best TNW Conference so far

Earlier this month we hosted the 12th edition of the TNW Conference in Amsterdam, one of Europe’s leading technology festivals.

The event is divided into two main components:

• Content: World-renowned thought leaders in the tech industry share their knowledge through keynotes, panels, workshops, etc.
• Business: Fast growing companies and enterprises showcase their solutions, establish new connections and do business

For this edition more than 75 companies got involved and aligned their brands with the event some sort of way. Their goals, challenges, target audiences and expectations varied quite a lot. Some companies try to increase brand awareness and recognition, others are more focused on generating leads or connecting with a desired group of people. And then there are the companies looking to share their story and establish themselves as a thought leader in a certain field.

It’s our goal to help our partners realise theirs and overdeliver on their expectations. This is quite challenging with so many different stakeholders involved. To give some insight, more than 33 percent of all partnerships were custom packages – which indicates our flexibility and shows that we value quality over quantity.

In this post I want to highlight a few of the “winning” partnerships of TNW 2017.

Relationship package

Xpenditure invited 20 of their key relations to the conference to have two days filled with inspiration, innovation and relationship building. During lunch in a private setting Xpenditure’s CEO – Boris Bogaert – presented the company’s 2020 vision. Lunch was followed by a private tour of the conference venue and eventually attending the Assembly; an invite-only gathering composed of the greatest architects of technology, global captains of industry, and the international community’s leading policy-makers.

Convenient Payments

PayPal helped us to make payments a lot more convenient at the conference and played an important role in transforming our event into a cashless conference for the first time. With a PayPal account attendees could seamlessly upload credit to their wristband prior to the event, an easy way to avoid standing in line. After the event, PayPal users received an automatic refund back into their accounts. A perfect example of a company using its solution to improve the overall experience of the event – a win-win situation.

The T500

By co-hosting our T500 program, Picnic and Accenture made it possible for 500 digital talents under 25 to attend the event for free. Together with our community partner Young Creators we went out to search for the best creators, developers, designers and young business minds in the Dutch scene. Throughout both conference days we hosted more than 30 talent sessions, a roundtable format to engage and connect with talent. This soft recruitment format proved to be a big hit and created a lot of exposure online. The selected talents heavily shared their gratitude of being selected for the T500 program on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter.

SMS reminders and the Hack Battle

This year we had more side events going on alongside the main conference than ever before. Simultaneous dinners, round tables, network drinks, parties, boat trips come with a lot of planning and organising. MessageBird provided us with the perfect solution to sent SMS reminders to participants, keeping them informed at all times. In addition they co-hosted the TNW Hack Battle, which was an excellent environment to let developers play around with their recently launched Voice API.

If you or your company are interested to get involved in our events, I’d love to explore the opportunities with you. Feel free to send me a tweet: @DerkvanLomwel or connect on LinkedIn.