--- title: '12th Canadian Developmental Biology Conference - Fourwaves' description: 'Discover how the 12th Canadian Developmental Biology Conference used Fourwaves to seamlessly manage registrations, abstracts, and payments.' url: https://fourwaves.com/customer-stories/canadian-developmental-biology-conference-management/ lang: 'en-US' --- Customer story 4 min read # How Fourwaves supported the 12th Canadian Developmental Biology Conference Published on 15 Aug 2023 **Summary** Managing a 4-day academic conference with distinct attendee categories, from Principal Investigators to graduate students, can be complex. Discover how Kenji Sugioka and his team used Fourwaves to smoothly manage 120 registrations and 97 abstract submissions, handle TouchNet payments, and streamline their administrative workflow. **Event type** Academic biology conference (4-day event) **Organization type** Academic Researchers / Scientific Society (12th Canadian Developmental Biology Conference) **Goals** Host a seamless, accessible bi-annual conference while accurately tracking diverse attendee categories and handling abstract submissions and registration payments. ![12th Canadian Developmental Biology Conference](https://fourwaves.com/_astro/12th-canadian-developmental-biology-conference-banner.CFFU8dOc_Z24AmqW.webp) Organizing a bi-annual academic conference involves balancing accessibility with careful logistical planning. For the [12th Canadian Developmental Biology Conference](https://event.fourwaves.com/12cdb/), the organizing committee decided to shift to a more affordable venue, choosing the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus. The goal was to boost attendance while maintaining the high quality of academic exchange their community expected. The strategy worked. Held over four days, the event welcomed 120 registrants and received 97 abstract submissions. The event was a great success, drawing in more attendees than our historical average for this region. ![Kenji Sugioka, PhD - UBC](https://fourwaves.com/_astro/kenji-sugioka.CJ98WxK__Z21PChL.jpeg) **Kenji Sugioka, PhD** UBC To handle this growth smoothly, the organizers relied on Fourwaves to manage the core of their event logistics. ## **The challenge: managing registrations, payments and abstract submissions efficiently** A developmental biology conference doesn’t just have generic “attendees.” It consists of Principal Investigators (PIs), graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and invited speakers. For the organizing committee, it was crucial to accurately track these different registration types. They needed a system that captured this data during registration and made it easy to calculate the number of participants in each category for reporting and planning purposes. Additionally, as the event was tied to UBC, the organizers needed a reliable way to process payments that integrated smoothly with the university’s financial ecosystem. ## **The solution: a “simple and organized” platform** ### Event website ![](https://fourwaves.com/_astro/12th-canadian-developmental-biology-conference-website.O5mYy4Km_2mxhl.webp) The event website was easily published, and the content included speaker information, sponsor logos, and much more. With Fourwaves, the website of previous edition remains accessible online for as long as organizers need. That allows to keep an archive and also allows organizers to clone a previous edition to get started quickly and save precious time. Here are the last two editions on Fourwaves: - [https://event.fourwaves.com/11cdb/](https://event.fourwaves.com/11cdb/) - [https://event.fourwaves.com/12cdb/](https://event.fourwaves.com/12cdb/) ### Registration and payments For Kenji and his team, Fourwaves provided an intuitive backbone for the event’s registration and financial management. By utilizing Fourwaves’ customizable registration forms, the team could easily sort attendees into their specific academic roles. “The registration setup was highly convenient for calculating the exact number of participants we had in each academic category,” Kenji explained. Beyond tracking, the financial management aspect proved to be a major time-saver. By using Fourwaves to collect payments via TouchNet, a partner with UBC financial services, the transaction process was secure and compliant. Dealing with cancellations or changes in academic funding can often lead to administrative headaches, but the platform’s tools simplified the process. Fourwaves is incredibly simple and organized. Administrative tasks, like processing refunds, were exceptionally easy to handle. It's a great platform. ![Kenji Sugioka, PhD - UBC](https://fourwaves.com/_astro/kenji-sugioka.CJ98WxK__Z21PChL.jpeg) **Kenji Sugioka, PhD** UBC ### Abstract management and program building ![](https://fourwaves.com/_astro/12th-canadian-developmental-biology-conference-schedule.BFKZIhKs_Z2lxUfC.webp) Organizers were able to manage the submission of nearly a hundred different abstracts of different types. They were able to build an online program where attendees could browse sessions and discover presentations ahead of the event. ## **Flexibility for custom on-site logistics** Every conference has its unique on-site traditions. For this event, the organizers wanted highly customized name badges that included not just institutional affiliations, but also specific society membership stickers and pronouns. Fourwaves’ flexible data management allowed the team to easily export a clean CSV file of all registrant data. This flexibility enabled the committee to seamlessly integrate Fourwaves’ data with their own internal tools to print the specialized materials they needed for the day of the event. ## **Future plans: looking ahead to Montreal 2027** With the Canadian Developmental Biology Conference alternating between the East and West coasts every two years, the next edition is slated for Montreal in 2027. Building on the success of the recent event, the organizing committee is already looking forward to leveraging more of Fourwaves’ capabilities. To address participant feedback regarding schedule visibility on the website, the 2027 team plans to use the [Fourwaves Conference App](https://fourwaves.com/conference-app/), allowing attendees to easily navigate the event from their phones. Furthermore, the organizers plan to upgrade to the Advanced plan to build custom, centralized web pages for travel and accommodation information directly on their event homepage. By continuing to partner with Fourwaves, the organizers are ensuring that as their bi-annual biology conference grows, the administrative workload remains simple, organized, and stress-free. [ ### Simplifying event registration for continuing education programs at UBC How the UBC Department of Physical Therapy replaced a discontinued tool and made registration and payments effortless for its certification exams and refresher courses. ](https://fourwaves.com/customer-stories/university-of-british-columbia-physical-therapy-event-registration/)[ ### From fragmentation to flow: why the MXR conference returned to Fourwaves Why Professor Robby Ratan and the SPARTIE Lab returned the Management in Extended Reality conference to Fourwaves to replace two disconnected systems with one. ](https://fourwaves.com/customer-stories/michigan-state-university-mxr-conference/) **Ready to simplify your next conference?** Join hundreds of other research institutions that use Fourwaves to automate abstract management and registration. [Book a demo](https://fourwaves.com/book-a-demo/)