verb: engage; 3rd person present: engages; past tense: engaged; past participle: engaged; gerund or present participle: engaging
1. occupy or attract (someone's interest or attention).
"he ploughed on, trying to outline his plans and engage Sutton's attention"
synonyms: capture, catch, arrest, grab, seize, draw, attract, gain, win, captivate, hold, grip, engross, absorb, occupy
"the tasks must engage the children's interest"
involve someone in (a conversation or discussion).
"they attempted to engage Anthony in conversation"
2. participate or become involved in.
"organizations engage in a variety of activities"
synonyms: participate in, take part in, join in, become involved in, go in for, partake in/of, occupy oneself with, throw oneself into; share in, play a part in, play a role in, be a participant in, be associated with, have a hand in, be a party to, enter into, undertake, embark on, set about, launch into
"they like to engage in active sports"
establish a meaningful contact or connection with.
"the teams needed to engage with local communities"
We want to see you do a presentation too.
Let us know if you have a great topic you would like to talk about.
We have 3 different types of presentation
Normal sessions take 45 or 60 minutes (depending on the slot in the schedule).
Please allow about 5 minutes for Q&A.
newShort sessions last 20 minutes.
Depending on the number of submissions, we will fill the 45 minutes slots with 2x 20' (and a 5' break in between, to set up).
newRound-Table discussions: 30 minutes, No slides, no presentation or laptop!
10 people can sit around the table, with a max. of 10 people standing around.
All sessions have to be presented in English. We prefer you bring your own laptop/tablet for doing the presentation.
All rooms are equipped for projection, and have wireless internet connection (we hope it is very reliable).
There will be 6 tracks:
Business & Strategy
Administration & Deployment
Development
new Big Data & Analytics
Emerging Technologies
Commercial (gold/platinum sponsors only).
Please submit your session proposal before February 28th. This will allow us to sort through the submissions. We should be able to announce the accepted session by mid March.
Some of the criteria for being approved are:
Originality (if 5 people want to talk about Installing Connections, we're not going to approve them all)
Timeliness (don't submit a session about using formula language in Notes)
Interest and Relation to all thing IBM Collaboration Solutions & Analytics/Big Data (Jumla development might be interesting, but not that many attendees will be interested, nor is it relevant)
Note that, we are open to topics that broaden existing solutions (e.g. modern JS frameworks, emerging technologies)
Availability of slots (we can approve around 60 sessions)
Track record as a speaker (note that we have had first-time speakers at every Engage event, so go for it!)
Session Proposals are no longer accepted. Announcements by mid March! Abstracts are closed as of Feb. 28th.
*All submitted sessions are subject to the Engage's approval
Contrary to previous year, we most likely will not be able to cover the hotel-expenses for non-commercial, non-IBM speakers.
The venue is very expensive this year. But who knows our budget is bigger than anticipated! We will try our best.
You have to book a room yourself (use the hotel link above). We'll tell the hotel 2 weeks up-front, if we can cover 1 or more nights, and for whom.
We are known to treat our guests very well, and want to keep this tradition going (yes, we will have chocolates in serious quantities again).
An exciting VIP Dinner (for all speakers and main sponsor representatives) is planned, for MONDAY evening at the main venue itself. Details soon!
The reception itself will give you butterflies :-)
For those speakers that are still around on Tuesday evening, we have an evening activity scheduled.
Every year we try to find something exciting, and I can guarantee you, it's going to be awesome again!
We can only accommodate 60 people!
Many cities in Belgium and The Netherlands (Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, ...) are well worth visiting, so extend your stay and enjoy.
All of the interesting cities are relatively nearby, and can be reached by car or train in less than an hour and a half.
We did more business and collected more leads during Engage 2017 in Antwerp, than at IBM Connect in San Francisco.
As a first-timer I didn't really know what to expect. The organization of the event positively surprised me!
A premiere event that rivals anything produced by any other organization. Great job...AGAIN!!!
It's a treat to always keep coming back for more! Well done, once again, and look forward to the 10th edition next year!
It is mind boggling to see two people create an event that rivals those put on by larger vendors with dozens of resources.
And huge thanks to Theo and the others for giving me my first international speaking engagement!
Theo is a legend, Theo has style. And he is putting together the best event in this space, year after year.
Engage was my first UG as a speaker and it has developed into arguably the premier user group for ICS in Europe.
Yet again a brilliantly done event. One that is used as the yard-stick by which all other user group events are measured.
Theo and Hilde did it again: Engage was bigger than last year, venue was impressive and the event most successful.
It was a pleasure, due to the efforts of Theo his team, the sponsors, the location and the participants. Much appreciated!
I was extremely impressed on all levels. Thank you to Theo Heselmans for the opportunity to speak at this event!
I’ve been to several of the past Engage conferences and Theo always puts on a great event but this was better than ever.
What can one say about this Engage, Eindhoven, NL. It is in fact THE European user group meeting,...
Theo Heselmans has raised the bar yet again as to what can be achieved with organizing an IBM User Group event.