WFO Executive Committee selects site of the 7th International Orthodontic Congress and 4th Meeting of the WFO
The Australian Society of Orthodontists will host the congress in Sydney

In May 2002, the WFO Executive Committee selected Sydney, Australia, as the site of the 7th International Orthodontic Congress (IOC) and the 4th Meeting of the WFO. The Australian Society of Orthodontists (ASO) will host this meeting Feb. 5-11, 2010.

“The general reaction by our membership has been one of great elation and pride that the WFO should bestow upon the Australian Society of Orthodontists the privilege to host the 7th IOC,” said Dr. B. Ian Watson, president of the ASO. “We put a great amount of hard work into our efforts to put forward the best possible bid to the WFO, and those efforts have been rewarded. We are honored and yet humbled by the procedure, and certainly we are somewhat daunted by the task ahead of us. We are also sympathetic to the other contenders who made excellent submissions.”

During the past year, the WFO Executive Committee encouraged all WFO affiliate organizations to submit bids to host the 7th IOC/WFO meeting, and several responded.
“As you can imagine, there was much interest in hosting the 7th International Orthodontic Congress and the 4th Meeting of the World Federation of Orthodontists,” said Dr. Lee Graber, president of the WFO. “Outstanding applications were received from several associations. Four cities were finalists: Cape Town, a joint application for Tokyo and Seoul, and Sydney. Any of these four locations would have provided wonderful sites for the meeting, and the host organizations would have had abundant local support. Because of the quality of choices, the WFO Executive Committee went through a lengthy multi-stepped decision-making process. Indeed, we found ourselves with a ‘wealth of riches’ from which to choose. The final selection was made difficult not by the need for making an award, but for having to inform those societies that were not selected. The process, though, demonstrates the strength of the national and regional societies from which the WFO gains its membership and support.”

The WFO Executive Committee is pleased with the resources Sydney offers to convention planners. It also has international appeal.

“Sydney was one of the cities that was able to meet the needs of an international scientific meeting with a likely attendance of between 5,000 and 10,000 participants,” Dr. Graber said. “Sydney is one of the great cities of the world that has international appeal, which was demonstrated in the successful 2000 Olympic Games. Sydney is a multicultural metropolitan area with over 150 different ethnic groups represented in the surrounding areas. Travel is available from all parts of the world, and the physical facilities for the convention in Sydney are excellent. Indeed, Sydney has hosted numerous international dental and medical conferences in the past, and their convention bureau is more than capable of handling our needs. By way of example, they are the host of the 2003 World Dental Congress. In addition to fulfilling the on-site requirements of the IOC/WFO meeting, the welcome from the mayor of Sydney, officials from the New South Wales state government, the national Australian government, as well as support from the individual members of the Australian Society of Orthodontists, was outstanding.”

ASO members began considering the possibility of hosting the 7th IOC several years ago. In 2001, the ASO settled on Sydney as the location of the meeting site. From there, the members began working on their application.

“We knew the WFO meetings had never been held in the Southern Hemisphere and have never been held outside of the UK, Europe or North America,” Dr. Watson said. “We knew we were, and still are, a small orthodontic society/association (now 498 members), but we knew we had made a significant contribution to global orthodontics and that we were determined to put ‘our best foot forward.’ It was a great effort by our team. We sent and received some 500 letters engendering support from everyone from our prime minister, Mr. John Howard, down to all the orthodontists of Sydney. The Sydney Convention and Visitors Bureau compiled the commercial details and photographs into a series of bound presentations.”

The 7th IOC/WFO meeting will be held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center at Darling Harbour. The convention center is equipped to handle multiple lectures and can meet the technology needs of the speakers. The exhibit hall of the center will also be able to accommodate the large space requirements of the orthodontic manufacturers. In addition, all attendees will be able to stay within a mile radius of the convention center. Many excellent restaurants and other amenities are close by. Sydney was recently selected by the International Congress and Convention Association as the No. 1 site for conventions in the Asian-Pacific region.

The Australian Society of Orthodontists has begun making arrangements for the Congress, such as blocking hotel rooms, convention facilities and setting up preferred travel arrangements for attendees.

The ASO is grateful for the support other regional orthodontic organizations expressed during the bid process and looks forward to working with these organizations as the planning gets under way.

“The challenge is not ours alone, as we belong in the Asian-Pacific region of the world and particularly are involved in the globalization of orthodontics,” Dr. Watson said. “We do not intend to present the 7th IOC as a purely ‘Aussie’ affair, but we wish to embrace the neighboring orthodontic societies/associations of the Asian-Pacific region to present the 7th IOC as a regional display of our collective experiences and skills in the main part with global contributions as well. Australia has some serious and sincere ‘bridge-building’ to do in the Asian-Pacific region, and we believe that there is enough goodwill amongst us all to involve and engage each other in this activity to make it a truly representative conference of the Asian-Pacific region. Of course, there will be difficulties ? that is to be expected ? but it is our belief that together we can make the 7th IOC an event that all of us in the region will be proud of and one that all the visitors from throughout the world will be pleased they did not miss.”
The WFO Executive Committee appreciates the efforts of those involved in planning this conference and the involvement of the other regional associations.

“As we have seen from the outstanding work by the French societies that are planning the 6th IOC in Paris in September 2005, the inclusion of other regional associations adds greatly to the scope of the conference,” Dr. Graber said. “We are confident that, with the leadership of the ASO and the strong support of the many fine national and regional orthodontic associations, the meeting in 2010 will prove to be one of the largest and finest orthodontic congresses ever held in the Asian-Pacific region.”