UNICC partnered with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to plan, set up, and integrate a reliable, scalable and user-friendly virtual conference platform for FAO’s 170th Council session.

On June 13th, 2022, the first day of the Council, the hybrid platform setup ensured that representatives attending in person at FAO’s headquarters in Rome and others joining virtually had a seamless conference experience.

Leveraging FAO’s previous conferencing platform and experience, UNICC worked over the course of eight weeks with 6Connex, a leading virtual event platform, to provide FAO’s Meeting Services Branch (CSGM) with a virtual conference environment with UNICC project management and support services essential to hosting Council sessions.

More than 600 delegates attended the Council through the virtual platform during the five days of the Governing Body.

I wanted to say a huge thank you for all the support you provided for the 170th session of the Council. All the preparatory work, together with your dedication and effective communication with participants ensured a smooth fruition of the Virtual Platform for all Members. Looking forward to future opportunities of collaboration.

Sergio Ferraro, Deputy Director, Governing Bodies Servicing Division at FAO.

During the conference, UNICC’s Conference Support team helped to expand FAO’s channels to support remote delegates by operating a multilingual live-chat module which the joint team tailored to FAO’s requirements and integrated into the Council’s conference virtual environment.

Credit: FAO

The UNICC-FAO support team also created a standalone instance of the live-chat module, accessible to all delegates for exceptional circumstances (such as not being able to access the platform)– allowing delegates to access content outside of the conference’s virtual environment. The solution replaced FAO’s previous support model, comprised of Help Desk services confined to a particular virtual room in the Council’s environment, with limited customization, an email ticketing system and a telephone line.

The professionalism, dedication, creativity and cooperation of the UNICC team were fantastic! We shared a very good and positive team spirit, working together as one team towards a common goal. And it was a success.

Elisa Milanesio, Conference Officer, Governing Bodies Servicing Division at FAO

By fully integrating the live-chat module into the virtual environment hosted in the 6Connex platform, UNICC ensured instant access to support for all remote delegates across the virtual environment, thus realizing a more comprehensive and rapid support channel.

UNICC and FAO also provided the live-chat platform and support to:

• Guide remote delegates across the virtual environment
• Resolve registration and technical issues
• Direct delegates to relevant documentation and agenda items available in the virtual environment and on the Council’s website
• Streamline and troubleshoot virtual access to the Council’s plenaries taking place in the virtual environment via Zoom integration.

In addition to dedicating two support agents from its own ranks, UNICC’s Conference Support team trained two FAO personnel as support agents who in tandem provided multilingual support to remote delegates in the FAO’s six languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish).

UNICC and FAO teams, together with the 6Connex platform team, collaborated extensively throughout the partnership. They met regularly to review work done and sync on the required actions for the implementation and customization of the live chat tool in 6Connex.

UNICC secured the 6Connex license and project management services for the implementation of the Council’s session, secured the license for, integrated and operated the live-chat platform, providing first level support to remote delegates, chiefly in the area of access to the virtual environment.

FAO led the effort to build and populate the virtual rooms of the Council’s virtual environment, managed delegates’ entitlements and access privileges, offered support to onsite delegates and provided and managed the Zoom tenant for the virtual component of the Council’s plenary sessions.

According to the live-chat platform data, 175 chats were supported on the days of the Council, aiding diplomats, ambassadors and country delegates with their access to the virtual venue. Through competent and regular analysis of requirements, documentation and project management practices, coordination, follow-up meetings and effective communication channels, UNICC’s Conference Support team was able to validate and meet FAO’s expectations for this digital diplomacy engagement and guarantee the timely delivery of expected services.

UNICC was the qualified and experienced partner that FAO sought at the onset of the project to deliver a smooth conference experience. This work was highly received through emails of Client appreciation.