In August, Belinda Griffiths (Senior Learning Consultant) and I attended CanvasCon Sydney 2019 at the International Convention Centre Sydney. As an official partner of Instructure Canvas, Oppida chose to exhibit, so we decked out a table in Oppida purple and yellow!
As far as conferences go, CanvasCon was slick and inspiring with keynote speeches from core executives of Instructure: Dan Goldsmith (CEO), Jared Stein (VP Higher Ed), and Katrina Hess (Product Analysis). The Australian audience of over 950 felt warm and fuzzy that the speakers all made an effort to journey to this side of the world.
In terms of agenda, Instructure Canvas also did a fantastic job of ensuring diversity in perspectives, sectors, and educational pain points. There was really something for everyone, and I believe we all came away a little bit wiser from each session.
As a relatively new, fully remote company, CanvasCon was actually Oppida’s first public appearance as a brand! It was personally quite a surreal experience for me to step back and admire our booth… To think, Oppida was just a business plan on a powerpoint slide deck six months ago. Now it has strategic partners, a series of clients, over ten freelancers on the books, and a huge product strategy!
One of the other exciting developments was the strengthening of our partnership with Instructure Canvas. I was very grateful to meet Kurt Showalter (Partnerships Manager) in person to discuss other ways to work together (a meeting complete with chocolates). Oppida has a global outlook and so we are excited to possibly work more in the APAC region. We are also stoked to be able to help Canvas deliver even more value to their clients by bringing strong design skills to the table.
Typically, there is a sentiment out there that face-to-face conferences are expensive and don’t have as much value as they used to (due to the rise in digital communication). As someone who spends her life on a Mac, I feel that nothing beats a day of human-to-human interaction! CanvasCon was a great opportunity to meet some of our clients face-to-face and also hear from the broader community on their digital learning aspirations.
The education community has a huge task ahead… we know this. Often this can feel like a very heavy weight to bear. However, when you see so many engaged and passionate educators in one room, all helping each other solve their pain points, you realise there are many heads working on this.
Thank you Instructure Canvas for such a great CanvasCon event. Oppida is looking forward to seeing what the next 12 months brings for you and your clients!
For more on what drives Oppida’s values and work ethic, read about how the company was conceived here.
