What is Innovation Academy?
What is Innovation Academy?
AAD Innovation Academy is the NEW meeting program being held this summer; it is taking place instead of the Summer Meeting. The meeting will highlight innovation and entrepreneurial practices and provide the latest information on the most popular topic areas, while maintaining some of the traditional programming that everyone loves about an AAD meeting.
This new meeting is meant to be more interactive and engaging. We’re introducing the Experience Hub, a place where attendees, faculty, and industry professionals can come together and have more intimate discussions. AAD Innovation Academy will also have a welcome reception on Thursday and a light reception on Friday during Derm Tank, a fun, new session based on the popular show Shark Tank.
View the schedule-at-a-glance.
What is innovative about this meeting?
Innovation is infused at every turn of this meeting. From new content and programming styles to engagement opportunities!
New tracks!
AAD Innovation Academy will feature a “choose your track” option on the first day, Thursday, July 21. The Future of Dermatology will cover drugs or devices that are coming to market, novel techniques, and emerging products. Branding and the Business of Dermatology will include talks on marketing and social media, branding and product development, and leadership and customer service. Derm Labs will include hands-on sessions and there will be a Practice Management course covering coding challenges, denials, managing staff and more.
New programming style!
Friday through Sunday the program will consist of larger, general sessions focused on a single topic area, this way you don’t have to run from session to session or feel like you are missing out on so many sessions that are happening all at once.
Experience the Experience Hub
A place where attendees, faculty, and industry can come together, and where you’ll find additional educational programming. We want you to hear more of the content you’re interested in, so we’ll be crowdsourcing topics from you and hosting smaller talks and larger presentations within the Experience Hub.
More fun!
Thursday evening the meeting will kick off with a welcome reception, including food and drinks and the opportunity to explore the exhibit hall.
Friday evening you’ll want to make time for Derm Tank, a fun, engaging session where presenters pitch their product or procedure to a panel of judges for a chance to win $10,000. We’ll be offering snacks and drinks too, so make yourself “at-home” as you enjoy the dermatology version of Shark Tank.
Bonus!
Summer in Vancouver is also a great family destination. We’ll also be offering childcare at AAD Innovation Academy, so you don’t have to miss out on the meeting due to childcare concerns.
Is there going to be a Summer Academy Meeting this year too?
No. Innovation Academy is the AAD meeting taking place this summer and replacing the Summer Academy Meeting.
Why is the Summer Meeting going away?
Over the years AAD Member and attendee feedback has come back saying that the Summer Meeting felt a lot like a “mini Annual Meeting,” with the same content just in a smaller scale. The desire was to have something new and fresh, a meeting where new things were presented, and not a replica of presentations from Annual Meeting. From this feedback, further research was conducted to determine what a new meeting would look like and what would interest future attendees. From this Innovation Academy was created.
The plan was to launch Innovation Academy in 2020, with the 2019 Summer Meeting being the last Summer Meeting, but then COVID-19 hit and live meetings were put on pause. Due to the uncertainty of live meetings in 2021, and the lack of an Annual Meeting being held, the decision was made to hold one more Summer Meeting in 2021, before transitioning to the new AAD Innovation Academy format this year.
