Biennium report 2023

INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR PROSTHETICS AND ORTHOTICS 27 National Member Societies - Activities Member Societies The 75 ISPO Member Societies are the backbone of ISPO. Each Member Society is independent and implements, within its country, region, or administrative jurisdiction, activities that further the objectives of ISPO. Education, exchange, partnerships, and collaboration are fundamental features of every ISPO Member Society, which join forces on common projects to reach mutual goals. In the following pages you can read about activities organised by ISPO Member Societies during the biennium 2021-2023. These local and regional initiatives - involving education, capacity-building, and awareness-raising - are proof of the great efforts, hard work, passion, and commitment that ISPO Member Societies demonstrate towards ISPO’s mission. Hong-Kong What does being part of ISPO mean for your member society? It is a commitment to being a family member of the professional body with access to a platform which can expand the network of local members and connect with fellow colleagues across the world. What were your main objectives and goals as a member society during the biennium? Our main objectives were: • To observe and maintain the professionalism of P&O. • To maintain the world class standard of P&O service of Hong Kong through the updating and mobilization of the local society members to participate the regional and world scale events (mainly online). • To act as coordinator of the profession in the region. How has the membership base of the society changed during the biennium, and what strategies have been implemented to attract and retain members? There has been no significant change in terms of number of members as well as the composition of members’ professions as it almost followed the similar trend of the previous report. Strategies to attract and retain members: • sharing of current issues of P&O professional knowledge by holding of local scientific meetings/seminars • offering sponsorships to high quality papers to attend online overseas conferences (APOSM 2021 Indonesia, APOSM 2022 Singapore, ISPO World Congress in 2021). • offering research grant to research projects lead by members as principal investigators. What do your members expected from ISPO International? They expect updates on current issues, state of the art technologies and practices of the professions. Also, the financial support on clinical research projects is very important to them. What have been your Member Society’s main challenges and drawbacks during this biennium? One of the main challenges has to been to increase the participation of the younger generation in the profession due to the pandemic as they had to take further measures into consideration in terms of the implemented protocols and reluctance and anxiety of people to receive the out-patient services in the public/private sectors. Fortunately, with the easing of pandemic restrictions locally and globally, the younger generation and in particular new members of the society have more opportunity to enhance their hands-on practices. Now we face a challenge to increase face-to-face engagement in scientific meetings which the restrictions halted. How did the society support professional development for its members during the biennium? We held online programme / scientific meetings to enhance the cohesiveness of the Society. Two consecutive events took place in 2021 and 2022 to gather the society members together to update members on the latest scientific and technological advancements in P&O practices by inviting local and international guest speakers to present in the captioned online events. How does your member society use the new ISPO Community platform? We are currently considering how we can promote the newly launched platform to our members. We believe that this new platform would help members to interact through the forums while the member tools including ISPOLearn, and the POI journals provide further opportunities to boost their scientific and hands-on practices in parallel. The courses, case studies and webinars presented in the platform are great opportunities for society members to expand their knowledge as an advantage of being an ISPO member. How did/does your member society contribute to the following: P&O Day, and ISPO World Congress? We announce the events to every member through emails, offer sponsorships for members to attend the ISPO World Congress (the earliest the upcoming World Congress in Mexico) while Executive committee members will attend the ISPO World Congress to further communicate with other society members and seek opportunities for further regional and international collaboration. What is the society’s plan for the future, and how does it intend to continue serving its members and advancing ISPO’s mission? Our society will continue serving the members in line with the ISPO international missions to provide the latest updates both scientifically and technically to the local members. We will encourage those interested members with significant