Ready to Submit?

Submit Your Session Proposal

Anyone! Whether you are a student, entry-level professional, experienced professional, or professor, you can submit your Global Health Science and Practice Technical Exchange session concept. You can design a session as one person, or a team of up to six. You are able to submit multiple session proposals. 

Attendees of past years have included public health experts, medical professionals, students, NGOs, USG staff, researchers, non-profits, and others interested in global health. Audience size will vary. If you would like to limit the size of your session’s audience, please indicate so in the session’s proposal. If your session proposal is accepted, you will be asked to indicate the desired experience level of your session’s audience. This information will be given to participants so they can select sessions best suited to their level of experience.

Session proposals will be scored by technical reviewers for the appropriate track. Reviewers will base their score on the below criteria: 

• Organization: Is this session proposal well-organized and clearly thought out?
• Diversity: Does this session incorporate diverse viewpoints? Especially for panels, does the session intentionally include voices beyond North America and Europe?
• Interest and importance: Is this topic important and interesting to attendees and to the field of global health more broadly?
• Cutting-edge: Is this topic innovative? Does it include evidence-based best practices?
• Overall score: Overall, what is the quality of this session? Should this session be considered for the final agenda?

Session proposals should address a topic in one of 12 global health tracks: 

• COVID-19
• Cross-Sectoral Engagement
• Environmental Health
• Family Planning and Reproductive Health
• Global Health Security
• Health Systems
• HIV & AIDS
• Humanitarian Relief
• Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health
• Noncommunicable Disease and Injury
• Nutrition
• Other Infectious Disease

• All sessions should include time for questions from the audience. Keep this in mind when designing your session’s content and structure.
• Once you start the session proposal in the online system, you will first provide your session name and track. Then you can save and return at any time by clicking “save + close” button at the bottom of the screen. This enables you to see all the questions prior to submitting your proposed session. You can edit your session proposal at any time up until the deadline.
• Your description of your session’s content is limited to 200 words and your description of your session’s timing is limited to 150 words in the online system.
• If you have an idea for a session in a language other than English, feel free to propose it! Just make sure the proposal itself is written in English for the technical reviewers to read. 
• If your session is accepted, the planning team will work with you to find the best day and time during the GHTechX for your session. 

Still have questions? Contact the planning team at ghtechx@ghpod.com.

Creating S.M.A.R.T. Learning Objectives

The establishment of all objectives should be created using the S.M.A.R.T. philosophy. S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym that is used to guide the development of measurable goals. Each objective should be:

• Specific: What exactly do you want participants to walk away with?
• Measurable: How will you know if your session meets your objective?
• Achievable: Is this a reasonable objective?
• Relevant: Should it be done for this specific session?
• Time-Oriented: At what point in your session will you focus on each learning objective?

Example of a S.M.A.R.T. objective: By the end of the presentation, the participant will be able to identify the five key aspects of cold chain vaccine delivery.

Example of non-S.M.A.R.T. objective: The learner will understand vaccine logistics.

Tips for an Engaging Mini-U Session

• Keep your objectives in mind—what do you want your participants to walk away knowing?
• Excite your audience! When possible use alternative presentation techniques. Especially in a virtual environment, you want participants to feel engaged by your session rather than feel like they are being lectured to.
• Imagine yourself attending your session. How can you make the presentation interesting enough for YOU to enjoy?
• If using PowerPoint…
  • Plan on holding audience attention for no more than two minutes per slide.
  • Limit slides to a number that can be covered in the time you have available, including time for Q & A.
  • Think carefully about your text- if the audience will not be able to read it, do not put the material in your slide.
  • Paraphrase PowerPoint text – never read to the audience. In a virtual presentation, participants need to be frequently engaged so that you keep their attention.
  • Use visuals to replace text where appropriate.

Ready to Submit?

Submit Your Session Proposal