COVID-19 POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT
A Message from PAVING THE WAVES:
Dear presenters (authors) & participants:
After continuous monitoring and a thorough evaluation, the organizing committee regrets to inform you that we think the best way to move forward with “Paving the Waves- 2nd World Conference on Floating Solutions 2020” is to have the event organized fully digitally, rather than in a hybrid (physical + digital) format as originally planned.
Why?
We have observed a second wave of coronavirus infections in the Netherlands and other countries where our attendees come from. Yesterday (16 Sept.) Germany and Belgium have marked South-Holland (the province of Rotterdam) code RED travel warning over COVID-19. Tomorrow (18 Sept.) the Dutch government will announce a new set of restrictions in the regions around Rotterdam amongst other large Dutch cities due to rapidly escalating number of new coronavirus infections. We anticipate restrictive measures being introduced in Rotter dam, which are likely to impede the holding of the physical conference of our size.
Your health is of utmost importance, as well as your time which you would (or already) spend on organizing your journey here. Please understand that we have to make this difficult decision now in order to avoid further uncertainty and disturbances.
What does it mean to you?
Everybody will participate digitally on an online venue platform called Hopin. For presenters who have submitted pre-recordings, you may choose to present live or let us play the pre-recorded and edited videos. The Q&A sessions will be live. There will be the stage, parallel sessions and exposition booths (from sponsors) on the Hopin platform. A short technical trial/rehearsal prior to the conference will be arranged, so that presenters could test and ask questions if any. Further information and a more detailed program will be shared with you soon.
Ticket policies
We encourage you to stay with us in the digital conference. Currently we are reaching 100 registrations with participants from various backgrounds and coming from more than 20 countries. For digital ticket holders, no action is required from your side. Please await further instructions from our side. For those who do not have a digital ticket or have not expressed to us about the change of your ticket:
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Early birds (and COVID-extension)
Your tickets would be changed to digital tickets within 7 days. Additionally, you will get exclusive access to videos and presentations from the conference.
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Space@Sea members (presenters/for GA meeting)
Your tickets would be changed to digital tickets within 7 days.
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General physical ticket holders
Your tickets would be changed to digital tickets within 7 days. The price difference between the physical and digital tickets will be transferred to your Paypal account (unless requested differently) within the next 2 weeks. Please contact us in case you have not received the refund after 2 weeks.
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Presenters who are also authors
Please note that in case yo u decide to resign from the conference (and presentation), your full paper will not be included in the book of proceedings.
As organizers who started to prepare for this conference a year ago, we are also very disappointed to see that the physical part of the conference would no longer be possible. We have been looking very much forward to meeting you in person at th e floating pavilion in Rotterdam. However, your health and time are much more important. We hope there will still be another chance in the future to meet everybody in person when the situation improves.
In the following days, we will focus on preparing the online conference and do our best to ensure you an exclusive experience. In case you have any other questions, feel free to contact us via admin@pavingthewaves.blue or Maarten Flikkema (for Space@Sea members)
Our apologies for any inconvenience caused, and we thank you very much for your understanding.
Stay healthy and safe!
You will hear from us again soon.
Sincerely,