Healthy Indoors Magazine - USA Edition

26 | January/February 2022 with them was incredible. I certainly hope they got sufficient time off afterwards to recover – with acknowledgement a little more extravagant than leftover pizza. The platform CIRI used was unfamil- iar because it required capabilities and performance beyond the ones most of us are familiar with after two years of virtual meetings. It required some practice to recognize menus and tools plus their locations on the screen. I found it quite challenging at times. For example, after the successful experience of an oral presenta- tion, a poster presentation, and a 9- min- ute workshop I had one last 10-minute presentation. I couldn't get the power point to show correctly. No problem – the moderators took me full speed ahead. Despite those challenges, the manage- ment of the calendar, the identification of the presenters, the availability of the abstracts, and the entrance into a series of sequential "stages" was superb. The recordings were uploaded within hours and were high quality. I would encourage others to contact CIRI for how to imple- ment their next virtual conference. The information in the Stages was excellent as usual for an ISIAQ con- ference. Broad-based and professional from academic researchers as expected. What was especially innovative for this conference, however, was the inclusion of practitioners, including those working in the field. The conference theme, in fact, was Bridging the Gap Between Research & Practice. This has never been done before. And this brings me to the most disap- pointing part of the conference. Despite good intentions, scheduled activities, and planned interaction between researchers sentations, changing the number of parallel tracks, cancelling several pre-conference workshops, presenters modifying their oral and poster presentations to comply with the virtual platform requirements, sponsors shifting to virtual support, and everyone planning, adjusting, and managing literally on a dime. I'm writing this description for two reasons. One is to express my appreci- ation for a job well done under unimag- inable conditions. The other is to express my disappoint for the unavoidable loss of a key component of the conference. Despite that, I want to encourage the next Healthy Buildings conference to focus on what was lost at this one. First the Accolades Kerry Kinney at the University of Texas at Austin was the president of the con- ference and Richard Shaughnessy at the University of Tulsa was the vice Ppesident. They had ultimate responsibility for the conference, and I have only a partial idea of how they managed to succeed. But they did. The major reason for accomplishing the conference was the host, CIRI, the Cleaning Industry Research Institute. John Downey and his amazing staff had live streaming of three simultaneous tracks after an ambitious series of training slots for how to access the conference, how to upload presentations and posters, and how to navigate an unfamiliar internet platform during their live presentations. Despite the training and practice sessions there were times when logging in became a challenge. Downey's staff were amazingly patient and understanding with expertise I've rarely experienced. Working T he virtual Healthy Buildings 2021-America conference took place January 18-20, 2022. But only after it appeared to crash and burn twice before, and again three weeks ago, when their guardrails were obliterated, and the roadway disappeared from under them. All they had left was a parachute into the unknown, but with just enough time to recreate, rebuild, and reconfigure for an all-virtual conference. And they pulled it off. ISIAQ, the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate, has an aggressive conference schedule with an Indoor Air conference every even num- bered year and two regional Healthy Buildings conferences every odd num- bered year. HB2021-America was originally scheduled for June 2021, in Honolulu but was rescheduled to November because of the COVID-19 pandemic. By mid-October, as the new Delta variant of the SARS- CoV-2 virus was accelerating, the Hawaii Department of Heath prohibited large groups and conferences. ISIAQ resched- uled to January to give the pandemic time to calm down again to allow an in-person conference. Except, it didn't. Omicron ignited. While Hawaii didn't prohibit conferences as they did last November, many of those who had planned on attending declined to travel. Some did so out of concern for their own personal health and safety, but others were restricted either by their university or when their country imposed restric- tive re-entry requirements. ISIAQ quickly switched to a fully virtual conference. This required several accelerated ad- justments such as a new schedule of pre- Healthy Buildings 2021 Survived with a Parachute

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