Later this month, AAPG will do something it’s never done before: conduct its first fully digital Annual Convention and Exhibition. We want you to be a part of this historic event.
ACE 2020 Online will run live from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 and is your opportunity to connect with friends, colleagues and the global petroleum geoscience community during a year when our industry and profession have faced tremendous uncertainty.
As the global pandemic forced us to postpone ACE 2020, previously scheduled for June in Houston, the organizing committee led by General Chair Cindy Yeilding and the AAPG staff team led by Alan Wegener began evaluating how to use technology to connect our community, and bring you the best of our flagship face-to-face event, no matter where you live and work.
ACE 2020 Online will feature:
- More than 400 technical talks and online poster sessions
- Plenary and panel sessions covering industry trends and emerging energy geoscience topics
- A technology showcase connecting you to new products and services to succeed
- Global E&P investment opportunities in the International Pavilion Theater
- U-Pitch, our technology investment forum
- Lots of opportunities to connect with each other through the Networking portal
There’s one more feature that I’m very excited about. When you register for ACE 2020 Online, you’ll have access to all of this during the days of the event and our digital platform will remain online until Dec. 30.
If there are two talks you want to see scheduled at the same time, you only have to choose which presentation you want to watch now. The other you can watch on-demand as your schedule permits. And you can watch your favorite talks as many times as you’d like.
ACE 2020 Online isn’t a three-day event. It’s a three-month event, giving you significant opportunity and flexibility to learn and grow professionally.
Having just participated in the virtual Summer NAPE and URTeC events, I can add that our ACE Online web portal is easy to navigate. If you’ve spent any time searching online or visiting with family and friends via social platforms, you won’t have any problems accessing the talks and connecting with friends and colleagues. And the music and trivia game events should be great fun. The URTeC online social activities had nice crowds and were enjoyed by all.
We’re pleased to present ACE 2020 Online with our long-time partner, the Society for Sedimentary Geology, or SEPM. This year we are also joined by the Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, whose members will be contributing to the technical program available to ACE 2020 Online attendees.
The Benefits, and the Stakes
Now, it’s clear that an online conference cannot fully replicate the fun, energy and incidental connections you can make by attending a conference in-person. But the digital conference experience delivers its own benefits, and ACE 2020 Online offers the best opportunity to safely exchange ideas and catch-up with friends while we endure the travel restrictions, social distancing requirements and the health concerns that have come to mark our present reality.
There’s another reality that AAPG faces. A successful ACE 2020 Online is vitally important to the Association’s financial stability. As President Fritz reflected last month, the loss of revenue from events dramatically affects AAPG and our sister societies, and ACE has historically been essential as a source of funding for our many no- and low-cost programs.
Being a part of ACE 2020 Online benefits you and strengthens our community. And we’ve created a special way for you to pay it forward. When you register for the conference, you’ll be given the opportunity to sponsor the registration for as many students and displaced colleagues as you like, providing them access to this powerful digital experience.
Heroes, Revealed
Overcoming obstacles, dealing with uncertainty and confronting the possibility of failure are all part of the search for hydrocarbons. It’s what we signed up for when we decided to join the world’s energy industry. But let’s be honest, it’s not an easy path – especially these days.
It’s said that hard times don’t create heroes, they reveal them. And that’s what’s happening in our industry and profession today. Everywhere across the globe we see Geo Heroes emerging, as they work diligently for their company’s survival, as they continue the search for the oil and natural gas to fuel the modern world.
AAPG is a community of Geo Heroes. It’s a community that I’m proud to be a part of.
It’s not an easy path we have chosen. Thankfully it’s not a path we must walk alone. Your next adventure – our next adventure – begins with ACE 2020 Online.