Faster Accreditation and Access

Описание: Faster accreditation and access

It is crucial that delegates coming to meetings at the Palais des Nations, one of the world’s premier conference centres, can get in quickly to start the work they have come from around the world to do.

UNOG has built on its relationship with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to adapt CERN’s long-standing solution for conferences, the tried and tested open-source InDiCo (Integrated Digital Conferencing) system.

Delegates with an InDiCo account, available to anyone, can send a request electronically to attend a meeting. The secretariat sponsoring the meeting reviews the request. InDiCo lets the secretariat register delegates too. Then security staff receive and review the list of the delegates approved to attend the meeting concerned.

Approved delegates can print out their e-ticket, which has a QR code, or download it onto their mobile phone, and use the fast lanes to present their ID to enter the Palais des Nations. The e-ticket functions much like a boarding pass at an airport. Even if delegates haven’t printed out their e-ticket, the time spent waiting for their badge to be printed on-site is reduced from five minutes to 30 seconds.

The Security and Safety Service, Geneva, responsible for getting large numbers of delegates into the Palais des Nations while keeping people safe, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, faced with the challenge of registering the many thousands of attendees expected at UNCTAD XIV in Nairobi in July, were natural partners to pilot InDiCo. The preparations for full implementation of InDiCo, following the success of the pilot, have included the creation of a robust and secure infrastructure. The system is up and running for all UNCTAD meetings in Geneva and during 2017 it will become available for all meetings sponsored by secretariats based in the Palais des Nations.

Corinne Momal-Vanian, Director of the Division of Conference Management, said: “InDiCo is an open-source platform that allows for integrated conference services, and for administrative efficiencies in accrediting conference participants and providing access to conferences. If the system were used across International Geneva, it could eventually serve as a common calendar of meetings, resulting in easier planning and substantial time savings for delegates. With its minimal operating costs and CERN’s active maintenance and development of the system, InDiCo is an affordable, efficient, secure and sustainable solution to long queues and administrative workloads.”

UNOG identified possible new directions for InDiCo, and CERN is in the process of developing InDiCo 2.0. UNOG’s innovations, in the best traditions of open source software, will be considered in the overall changes that CERN will make to the software. For its part, UNOG plans further enhancements to the system, such as making the system available on a mobile app, and permanent accreditation for journalists and NGOs that is unlinked to specific meetings. Thomas Baron, leader of CERN’s Integrated Collaboration Section, spoke of the open and positive collaboration between CERN and UNOG and appreciated the willingness of UNOG to feed the features it had developed back into the basic InDiCo source code.