The “#Eventprof for a Day” talk series, launched last semester by IFTM Lecturer in Festivals and Events Dr. Ubaldino Couto, had a new instalment in April. Mr. Jairo Calañgi, co-founder of MR.J Sports and Entertainment Events Planning Company Limited, was the guest speaker for the session, discussing with participating students his business projects.
As part of the “#Eventprof for a Day” series, IFTM invites professionals working in the field of events to give talks to undergraduate students enrolled in event management-related courses. The students joining April’s session came from the English-language stream of the Tourism Business Management and Tourism Event Management programmes.
During his talk, Mr. Calañgi explained that MR.J Sports and Entertainment Events was a sports events management company set out to promote corporate sport events in Macao.
Because of COVID-19-related travel restrictions, people living in Macao “are turning to the city’s innate resources to pacify their travel and entertainment needs,” says Dr. Couto. “The sports events organised by Jairo not only provide much needed relief and activities for Macao residents, but also bring different communities together and most importantly, induce a sports culture.”
In Mr. Calañgi’s presentation, he shared with students his successful business endeavours in creating corporate sports events, including team building activities and entertainment events based on sports. He highlighted the importance of ‘thinking out of the box’ when organising an event: being passionate about the field was important in order to achieve that, he said.
Mr. Calañgi – who previously represented the Macao SAR as an athlete in sports competitions – said he had identified corporate sports events as a niche market with high potential. MR.J Sports and Entertainment Events was now working on exploring this segment.
The guest speaker said he often worked with a variety of small- and medium-sized companies for his events. Mr. Calañgi stated that approach empowered and welcomed to the events scene smaller businesses that could otherwise find it difficult to engage in the organisation of large-scale events.
According to Dr. Couto, “although corporate sports events are much smaller in scale than major sports events like those organised predominantly by the Government, these smaller events instil an inclusive business environment that can benefit a wider range of businesses, helping them to diversify their work portfolio and also explore new business fields via partnerships and collaborations.”
The “#Eventprof for a Day” talks are intended to bring external speakers into the classroom, making the speakers, as it were, professors-for-a-day. By leveraging the working experience and life stories of the guest speakers, the lectures enrich the curriculum, inspire students in their career planning, and contextualise the links between theory and practice.
“The hashtag ‘#eventprof’ typically refers to professionals in the events industry, as well as professors in events. On Instagram alone, tags related to ‘#eventprof’ are over 1.9 million,” Dr. Couto says. “In our version of professor-for-a-day, we invite event professionals as guest speakers to come and share with our students their insights of the industry and vibrant experience.”
The “#Eventprof for a Day” talks “are extremely timely in the present difficult situation” related to the widespread impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the events sector, Dr. Couto says. Students can be inspired by these sharing sessions and reflect on their own career aspirations, he adds.
