PLEASE NOTE: The proposal site is now closed for all proposals. Please contact Heidi Wandell, hwandell@cwea.org, or Monica Myhill, mmyhill@cwea.org, if you need assistance.

Play a part in the upcoming CWEA Annual Conference 2019 (AC19) to be held in Palm Springs from Tuesday, April 9 - Friday, April 12, 2019 by submitting proposals for our Educational Sessions and/or our Innovation Learning Centers. The AC19 Education Program Team looks forward to working with you to design and develop meaningful presentations where participants can engage, connect and learn.

Over 1,000 professionals in the water and wastewater profession attend this highly regarded Annual Conference. Individual presentations generally attract 40-100 people and as a presenter, you will be able to share ideas and experience case studies to help our industry succeed and establish yourself as a thought leader in the water industry.

CWEA’s mission is to create an industry-leading conference that helps our future leaders leave our industry in a better place when they retire. Through this Annual Conference, CWEA will empower attendees to:

• Create a Utility/Agency of the future
• Grow their leadership, technical skills and capacity
• Network with one another and share lessons learned

We surveyed our members, local section leaders, technical committee leaders and top agency leaders to uncover the challenges our membership faces.  For more info on the challenge or topic areas that we have identified for this conference, please check out this document. 

We are currently seeking proposals in these categories:  

Education Session Proposals

There is no limit to the number of session proposals that may be submitted by an individual, company, organization or institute. Please do consider partnering with others to submit one or more proposals – a collaborative approach to developing sessions is encouraged.  This category features Workshops, Technical Sessions and Panel Discussion Sessions.  For more information on these session types, please check out the last portion of this document.   Sample proposals are also available to help get you started. 

Exhibit Hall Related Proposals

We are seeking presentations for the Innovation Learning Center as well as guided Exhibit Hall Tours both of which will be held in the exhibit hall during the exhibit hall open hours.  The Learning Center will feature the best new technology presentations by exhibiting companies from 4:00 – 6:00 pm on both Wednesday, April 10, 2019 and Thursday, April 11, 2019.  Anyone can propose an Exhibit Hall Tour.  For more information on these session types, please check out the last portion of this document.

Invited Speaker proposals must be submitted online by 11:50 pm PST on Friday, October 12, 2018.

Exhibit Hall Tour and Learning Center proposals must be submitted online by 11:59 pm PST on Friday, October 26, 2018.

Since proposals are collected using this online system, we suggest that you first collect your thoughts before starting the online process. More information on what you will need to provide in the online proposal system can be found here.

Consider viewing the Brain-Based Learning:  Designing Learner Focused Sessions – Webinar held on Wednesday, August 22, 2018 by Wendy Wert, P.E., BCEE, Environmental Engineer, LACSD; Dianne Lee, Marketing Director, West Yost and Monica Myhill, CWEA Director of Education. 

Discover how your presentations can be more appealing to today’s audiences.  Identify new techniques that help make presentations more memorable and impactful. Learn strategies that can help make your presentations effective.  If you are considering submitting a CWEA session proposal, give presentations, conduct training classes or want to present in the future, this webinar is a must.

After participating in this webinar, you will be able to: 

• Create presentations using learner centric techniques
• Describe why it’s important to use brain based techniques for presentations
• Name specific examples of brain based techniques that you too can use