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Smart Event Foundations FAQ

What is the Smart Event Foundations (SEF) program?

This program is for anyone who is interested in understanding the digital side of event delivery – from strategy through to event tech project management.
The program is specifically designed for non-technical event professionals. Easy-to-use event tech combined with in depth training videos means even if you’ve never touched a reg system in your life, you will be able to follow along.
There are no business or technical pre-requisites to take a course. The course is delivered in English and there is both video and written content. Natural curiosity, love of problem-solving, and desire to learn new things is all you need to succeed.
Yes, absolutely! As long as your in-person event has any digital components – registration, speaker management, exhibitor management, content management – you will benefit. The in-person/digital inter-relationship is often missed in event planning, and this course addresses that directly.
In the Foundations program we take a mock event style approach to learning to take you from event brief to event delivery, using real event tech. You’ll get to build and manage your own event from start to finish, including some of the most familiar gotchas. We’ll get you as close to a real event as we can without you stepping foot on the show floor.
If you are curious to learn more about how to combine digital with in-person event strategy, then you’ll find this course to be invaluable. We cover in-depth how the in-person components of an event intersect with registration, session and speaker management, the expo and more.
Yes, this program will. The concepts remain the same, independent of the tech. While the event tech is an integral part of this program, this is not a technical event tech training program. The digital event strategy and concepts taught in this program will translate to any event tech stack.

In this case, event tech means the online components — from the marketing site to registration to the content system to the schedule builder to the digital venue — that’s required to deliver an event.

A/V (audio visual) deployment and production are not a part of this program beyond integration tips and tricks.

SEF details and time commitment

The core certification program is six weeks, but you have six months to complete the hands-on, capstone project and take part in the weekly mentoring calls.
The Foundations course consists of:
– Six-week online, self-paced course with weekly live Q&A calls and some small group exercises
– Six-month mentoring program with weekly live Q&A calls
New classes start every couple of months. Sign up here to get on the waitlist.
The Smart Event Foundations course is designed as an intensive to help professionals quickly get up to speed. You can expect to spend roughly 3-5 hours per week on course material, including homework.
Life happens and people get behind. While this course is designed to get people up to speed quickly, we know that keeping up with the material may not be possible for everyone.
 
Which means that the weekly live calls are not tied to any specific lesson. And you have a total of six months to get through the material and complete the capstone project so you can earn your certification.
You have up to six months to complete all of the material.
All calls are recorded and are available to be watched at any time.
The six-month mentoring program starts the week your class does and consists of weekly live Q&A calls.
 
These calls are your chance to marry what you learned in the course with what you are seeing in the workplace.
The templates, documents, and learnings are yours for life – and we’ll send you a reminder to download what you’d like to keep before your time in the course wraps up.
Of course. Lessons for the week are released on Mondays.
Lessons for the week are released on Mondays.

SEF enrollment and payment

The Foundations certification tuition is currently $1,795 USD.
For individuals, we support payment by credit card.
 
For organizations, we support payment via credit card, ACH, or wire transfer.
You bet. And with a cohort-based learning model, you’ll start meeting industry peers on the very first day.
You can. We offer group registration programs and support organizational-friendly payment options like ACH and wire transfer. Reach out to start the process.
We offer a full refund before the end of the first week of your cohort. After that time, no refunds will be issued.
Yes, you can purchase seats now and have up to one (1) year from the time of payment to send someone through the course.
You bet. We find that many companies are happy to invest in specialized training because it cuts onboarding time and expenses and improves client retention.
 
We have created a proposal template that you can give to your manager outlining the course benefits. Download a copy.

Quizzes and certificates

Yes, there are required online quizzes after many of the topics and lessons.
You must complete all of the course material and receive an average score of 80% or higher on the lesson and module quizzes.
As this is a self-paced course, you can take the quizzes at your own pace. We recommend taking each lesson or module quiz as close as possible to when you completed the material.
 
In order to earn your certificate of completion, you must complete all quizzes by the end of the six-month mentoring period.
Yes. You can take a quiz up to three times.
No, you can continue on to the next module without passing the quiz.
 
You cannot, however, earn your certificate of completion without an average passing score of 80% across all quizzes.
You will receive a SEF certificate upon completion if you complete all of the course material, receive an average score of 80% or higher on the quizzes, and complete the capstone project.

About the instructor

The course is taught by Jen Santos, a 30-year tech veteran with more than a decade leading event tech at some of the world’s largest companies.

Technical questions

The course takes place right here on https://smarteventacademy.com with the live Q&A taking place on Zoom. Once you are enrolled, you’ll get an overview of the online learning and community platform.
Please reach out to support@smarteventacademy.com. Including error messages and screen shots will help immensely.
Throughout the program you will receive worksheets, documents, and playbooks to download and make yours. However, the course videos are not downloadable.

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