We made it together – Let’s do it again!
Jyväskylä is a very active congress city in Finland. Every year the city of Jyväskylä awards one congress the top honor of “Congress of the Year” further underlining the importance of international congresses to the city. This year, that conference award was given to the organizing committee that hosted AIESEP 2024!
The AIESEP 2024 conference theme “The Past Meets the Future” honored Jyväskylä’s history as a pioneer in PE Teacher Education training in Finland. The conference was held at the Faculty of Sport and Health Education at the University of Jyväskylä. After analysing the statistics of who came to the AIESEP conference we were delighted to find that it was the largest conference in the city in 2024, attracting 550 participants from 52 different countries across all continents. Typically, there have been approximately 300-350 participants in the annual AIESEP conferences. The number of participants in 2024 was also surprising to the organizing team. This larger number of participants challenged the organizing team to modify the structure of the congress program and to find room for everyone.
The Congress of the year award committee wanted to highlight AIESEP 2024 for the innovative use of the available opportunities provided in the springtime campus environment. That was one of the main reasons why the congress award was given to the organizing committee of the 2024 AIESEP conference. However, conferences can only be successful with active and engaged participants. Therefore, the conference organizing team wants to thank you all, the great AIESEP family, who made Jyväskylä a happy, lively international city during the conference days. It reminded us of the importance of Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy at the university level, but also nationally in Finland. Many local citizens of Jyväskylä recognized the smiling AIESEP participants around the city, heard so many different languages, and were touched by PE as a science.
Next time (in May of 2025) we will meet in St. Petersburg, Florida… so just as we made AIESEP 2024 a fantastic experience, let’s do it again in Florida!
