Update on 2010 AT Expo

By all accounts, it was another successful year!  Below is the highlights of this year’s event.  And remember – mark your calendars for the 8^th Annual Assistive Technology Expo & Pre-Conference – April 27-28, 2011!  Visit this website for information about the 2011 AT Expo as it becomes available.

Here is a breakdown of the numbers from the event:

·     Mark Coppin, Anne Carlsen Center, presented information on the Apple ITouch products in eight hour session to 57 participants during the pre-conference workshop on April 14.  Due to high demand, Mark also repeated the workshop on April 16th for 31 participants.

·     On April 15^th,  118 people attended 14 concurrent educational sessions.

·     234 people attended the Metro Area Mayors Committee Awards Banquet which was held in conjunction with the Expo. 

·     We filled the exhibit hall to capacity and had 58 different vendors and organizations represented. 

·     We are proud to say that we had over 570 people through the vendor exhibit hall on April 15^th.

·     There were seven area support groups who signed up to share their information.

·    We held our second Self-Advocate conference in the evening of the expo day.  We had 90 people with disabilities and their staff sign up.

·     Connections of Moorhead hosted a dance after the conference and we had 150-200 people rocking the dance floor.

·    We received 3 grants from ND Department of Instruction, ND Rehabilitation Consulting and Services, and Dakota Medical Foundation that aids in keeping the cost of educational session registration low and the Exhibit Hall FREE!

Every year we seek to extend the reach of the Expo through advertising and promotions. Here is a sample of what we did this year

·       From January-May, we have had an average of 2300 unique visits per month to our website www.atexpo.org.  March spiked to 3700 and May we continue to get 1000 hits.

·       AT Expo had our first Facebook page.

·       We increased advertising on the radio and put ads in all 89 newspapers in ND and 81 newspapers in MN.

·       The AT Expo was the feature of a new and free publication, Health and Living Magazine and over have 15,000 hard copies were distributed!  The magazine can be read cover to cover at http://www.thefmextra.com/special-publications.php.

·       We received local media support with a on-site report done at the Ramada the day prior the expo.  We had a number of attendees say that is how they learned about the expo.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

People interested in Assistive Technology (AT) for themselves, a friend, family member, student or client. Whether you have a child with a learning disability, a parent with memory loss or you need help staying in your own home and getting back to work, this Expo is for you!