The University of Sydney enters new markets and helps students by taking its ‘Meet Sydney’ Virtual events global with ibentos
New Delhi: During the pandemic, with international borders closed, it is challenging for educational institutions to reach out to students of different geographical areas for admissions. It is equally challenging for students who wish to shape their future with some international exposure and pursue their dreams of higher education in universities abroad. Gauging the situation and looking ahead to the future, the University of Sydney took steps that helped them stay ahead of the curve. They quickly responded to the situation by launching their first International Virtual Fair- Meet Sydney India last year on ibentos virtual platform, which has been used by 200+ institutions so far for student recruitment programs.
Talking about the virtual events, Nishant Jadhav, Senior Regional Manager, the University of Sydney, said “We started with the India event last year which saw high uptake and reach to more than 30 tier 2 cities in India and attendance rate was more than 50%. This gave a good confidence for proceeding with the events in India, Middle East, China and Africa region with modification of 3D landing pages. We were able to maintain a high level of engagement with more than 2500 registrations across different regions with an attendance rate of 55%+. Across different regions 40%+ students were interested in one-on-one counselling and meeting with subject experts which ibentos team was able to set up and execute flawlessly.”
The Meet Sydney virtual event received an overwhelming response from students and parents in different countries. Talking about the student experience, Jaspinder Bhatia, Co- Founder and COO, ibentos, said, “Meet Sydney Virtual Information Sessions were a comprehensive solution to all the student requirements. Students could virtually experience the university, attend the virtual event, tune in to the webinars, gather information about the university, its faculties and courses offered and have face-to-face conversations with the subject experts. And all of this in one place.”
The virtual platform was customised to meet the specific needs of students in different global markets. Talking of the challenges, Harpreet Bhatia, Co- Founder and CEO, ibentos, said, “The most interesting part was to overcome the challenges in making our virtual platform China-ready. China has a restricted environment when it comes to web applications but with the extensive feedback and support that we received from the university team, we were able to address these barriers in no time. As always, working with their team was a wholesome experience and we hope that this partnership goes a long way.”
Nishant further expressed his satisfaction with the execution of these events, “Both founders of ibentos, worked closely with us throughout the process by staying on task, target, and budget. They have shown enormous skill and vast domain knowledge and their IT expertise is reliable and trustworthy. The final product virtual event platform was great to work on and easy to update, manage and run the event.”