In 2003, Dental ED -- an e-technology company based in Australia -- decided to hold a seminar, but instead of inviting dentists to one venue they invited a number of venues from around Australia to one seminar.
The concept was unique and paved the way to the new found success of Dental ED, a remote dental education service.
In August 2005, Dental ED officially launched in North America. The first guest speakers were Dr. Ed Mclaren and Dr. Brain Lesage from UCLA. The aim of the service was to give American dentists easier and cost effective access to the latest advancements in dentofacial therapy from high profiled international presenters. The result was a success with great revues from venue coordinators and dentists who participated in the event.
"When it comes to the staging of traditional in-person seminar tours the consistent challenges centre on cost and access to the target audience", said Emanuel Recupero, Director of Dental ED.
"Flying an international speaker to conduct a seminar in selected capital cities is quite expensive regardless of how carefully costs are managed. And with North America been such a geographically dispersed country there is always bound to be a sizeable number of dentists who cannot attend because of the cost and distance they would have to travel."
Dental ED has revolutionised the way education is conducted and put the unique service on the dental industry map world wide. As the first company in Australia, and perhaps in the world, to hold large-scale live interactive web seminars led by local and offshore presenters is breaking new ground.
The Dental ED program is offering healthcare professionals new ways to access live presentations with national and international lecturers, wherever they maybe, in North America or around the world.
"Many users of other types of virtual meeting technology have been discouraged by online collaboration applications, including video conferencing. And at times these have proven unreliable or have failed to live up to their promise for various reasons. As the first live interactive web seminar of its type targeting the dental profession, Dental ED had no easy way to predict how many dentists would register for the event. As it turned out, the response exceeded Dental ED's expectations.
"The technology we use is highly advanced and therefore performs without a hitch. However I don't believe Dental ED is popular purely because of this. I believe it's the unique calibre of speakers on our program as well as the model we implement. Dentists always comment that our lecture program is fresh, cutting edge and our speaker list is truly impressive. Been the world's largest remote dental education service we assure our dentists that we will always provide them with the best speakers and latest material from Australia and around the world."
For more information on Dental ED, visit www.dentaled.com.au.