CONFERENCE ROUND-UP:

Successful 2013 ATP conferences held in Malta and New Delhi/ 2014 conferences planned for Scottsdale and Budapest  

Two successful conferences were held in September in St. Julian's, Malta, hosted by the European Division of ATP (E-ATP); and a smaller one-day event, hosted by the newest Regional organization, India-ATP, in New Delhi.

Securing the future employment of professional careers in India — through education and assessment — was the central topic for discussion during the inaugural India Association of Testing Publishers(I-ATP) conference,  held September 20th at Habitat World in New Delhi.  Professor Sanjay Govind Dhande, an acclaimed academician and administrator, served as the event's keynote speaker.

India ATP’s conference, titled Achieving Fairness in Testing, brought together testing and assessment  leaders, to engage in open dialogue for discussions on how best to support India’s education and government leaders to ensure fairness, integrity and equal access to honest and secure testing.    The featured keynote address, panel discussion and breakout sessions examined the science behind 'good' and 'fair' testing, today’s trends in examination, candidate security and test delivery environments, as well as the future of testing and assessment in India.

On September 25, E-ATP kicked off its fifth annual Growing Talent in Europe/Gaining Advantage Through Assessment conference. Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of Learning Technologies at Plymouth University opened the Malta-based conference with a key note address "Skills, Competencies and Literacies: What are the Needs of the Digital Generation?" In his talk Wheeler examined whether Millennials learn differently than previous generations and whether current delivery and assessment methods are becoming increasingly anachronistic in the face of the digital revolution. Wheeler's presentation drew on new and emerging theories of learning and his own personal observations - he shared a video with the audience The Future of Publishing - as well as presented empirical evidence from published research.

E-ATP's second day of conference was kicked off my keynoter Bob Athwal, Director of the Career Service at the University of Leicester, who talked about the development of "Skills for a Techno Generation";  and the conference rounded out on the last day with a team presentation by two members of the award winning Sunderland City council in the U.K. who told their story of how cutting edge assessment was the key to uncovering the talent they needed to overcome severe economic challenges. Next year's E-ATP conference will be held in Budapest, Hungary 24-25, September at the five star Kempinski Hotel.

ATP's largest annual conference, Innovations in Testing, now in its 15th year, is set to kick off March 2-5, 2014 at the Westin Kierland resort  & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. The conference will include keynote speaker Hilary Mason, Data Scientist in Residence at Accel, Scientist Emeritus at bitly, co-founder of HackNY and a member of May Bloomberg's Technology and Innovation Technology Council. As Hilary says, "I make beautiful things with data."

Registration is open and sponsorships are still available at www.innovationsintesting.org.