“It’s quite the challenge for our university.” That is how prof.dr.ir. Wil van der Alst (Mathematics & Computer Science) characterizes the large-scale move of the BPM convention to Eindhoven. Being the chairman of the event’s Steering Committee, he was there when it was decided to move the convention for safety reasons.

“There have been similar situations in Israel before, of course, but they were often short periods of unrest followed by long-term truces. We’ve been hoping for peace all this time, which is why we didn’t start thinking about an alternative sooner as that would only be cause for confusion. Eventually, people in Israel realized it would be irresponsible to host the event.”

According to Van der Aalst, the organization weighed several other options, but no other party was able to set up the event “at such short notice. TU/e is the best university in this field internationally, and we can easily mobilize a few dozen people to help out.”

That doesn’t mean it was easy to move the event to Eindhoven - there are still some “minor loose ends” that need fixing. Apart from one keynote speaker from Israel, the event program remains intact mostly: renowned Business Process Management experts will be speaking in Eindhoven just as well.

The number of participants, which is normally well over three hundred, will be significantly lower. Van der Aalst expects a little over 150 visitors.