Salesforce Education Summit 2024: dates and location, top 5 sessions and more

Calling all education sector professionals! It’s nearly time for an unmissable event in the Salesforce^® calendar: Salesforce Education Summit 2024! 

What is it? When and where is it held? How much does it cost? What are the must-see sessions? We’ll give you all the important details right here, so read on.

What is Salesforce Education Summit?

Salesforce Education Summit 2024 is a Salesforce event exploring the future of education. It’s packed with learning and inspiration, with expert-led sessions and workshops, demos, hands-on learning and more. At Salesforce Education Summit, you can discover the latest educational innovations, share ideas and make connections, gain knowledge about education technology best practices, and celebrate learner and institution success – all in one place. 

With more than 90 planned sessions from global education leaders, you’ll be sure to find plenty of interesting and relevant happenings at Salesforce Education Summit 2024. We’ll be revealing our top picks later on in this article – keep reading right to the end! Before that, we’ll tell you more about the event.

When is Salesforce Education Summit? What is the location?

Now let’s cover some very important details: when and where. Salesforce Education Summit 2024 takes place from May 13 to 15, in San Diego, California, USA. The event’s location is the Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina – 333 West Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA, 92101. 

This year’s Summit will be held fully in-person, without a virtual program. However, selected sessions will be made available on demand via the Salesforce+ streaming service in May 2024. In the meantime, if you’d like to see what a previous Education Summit was like, you can stream some of last year’s sessions here.

Who should attend? What is Education Summit’s cost?

All kinds of educators, and technology professionals and others working in the education sector will find it valuable to attend Salesforce Education Summit 2024. Whether or not your school, college or university is using Salesforce technology yet, everyone who attends can learn, network and make the most of this fantastic event. 

How much is Salesforce Education Summit 2024? Subject to verification, attendees can take advantage of special rates:

• Full-time employees of private education institutions or nonprofits (final price: $599)
• Full-time employees of public education institutions or government entities (until end of event: $449)
• Those who do not meet any of the above criteria (final price: $999)

At the time of writing, tickets are still available – so don’t delay, Education Summit registration is here!

Veronika’s top 5 best Education Summit Sessions

We asked Veronika Kievich, VRP Customer Success Manager specializing in the education sector, for her selection of what she thinks will be the top 5 best Education Summit 2024 sessions. Here’s her pick, in no particular order, along with the reasons why she expects these sessions to be particularly interesting and important, giving reference to recent research she has studied in Salesforce’s Connected Student Report (third edition):

Breaking Down Data Silos and Streamlining Student Services

It’s vitally important for educational institutions to create and nurture their connections with students, as the research shows that “students who have a strong connection to their institution and a strong feeling of belonging are more likely to have a great experience.” With that in mind, technology can help forge better connections for students and staff. Surprisingly, more than a quarter of students (27%) reported they felt their university was using outdated technology to support students, while 44% of students reported frustration that they needed to sign into more than one app to find the info they needed. How can educational institutions foster the feeling of belonging via Salesforce products?

About the session:
This Education Summit Session explores how technology can be used to foster stronger feelings or connection and belonging by providing better student support services. You can learn how the University of Tennessee uses Tableau, MuleSoft and Experience Cloud to connect systems, visualize data, and share key metrics across advising, one-stop services, and more to transform student support. The session will cover learner experience and success, institution innovation and operations, and communication and engagement. 

How to Power Holistic Advising Campuswide

In Chapter 2 of the Connected Student Report, “Providing Holistic Support from Application to Graduation”, students were asked what values they expected their university to uphold. Nearly a third (32%) said academic excellence, but wellbeing (26%), diversity and inclusion (26%), and trust (24%) were also all named frequently. So, what can technology do to address these issues and meet these needs?

About the session:
Featuring Salesforce Experience Cloud and Marketing Cloud, this session will be particularly relevant to anyone interested in the topics we’ve just looked at. In the session, you’ll discover how USC uses Salesforce Education Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Experience Cloud to integrate student engagement and support practices that drive inclusion and timely degree completion. 

Trekking & Tracking: Using Salesforce for Career Exploration

Almost half (47%) of students surveyed in the Connected Student Report said they selected their institution for career prospects, but only 11% felt very prepared for the world of work, and half (48%) predicted their credentials would be relevant for only five years. On the other hand, employers “are asking for students with knowledge that cuts across disciplines”. How can institutions, via more connected student experiences and services, support all of this?

About the session:
This session tackles the topic of how institutions can provide technology-driven support for students progressing into the workplace – using a real-life example. You’ll find out how the Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder uses Salesforce to oversee its Career Trek program to visit employers around the country and manage student applications, employer hosts and more. We can’t wait to learn more about the program, the opportunities and experiences it’s enabling for Leeds students, and how Salesforce is helping to make it all possible. 

Leading the Charge in Alumni Engagement with Education Cloud

More than half of students (52%) surveyed expect to keep learning on the job, while 49% of students want to keep learning through a higher education institution, either online or face to face. As the report states, these desires “provide universities with an opportunity to maintain lifelong, mutually beneficial relationships with their graduates”. It also states that “technology has also allowed for a new approach to engaging alumni, who could also be lifelong learners with new expectations.” With all of this in mind, what role can Salesforce technology play in enabling long-term learning and strong, lasting alumni relationships with their alma maters? 

About the session:
This highly accessible beginner-level session is all about lifelong learner impact. It will focus on Education Cloud and the topics of advancement, alumni and corporate relations, and communication and engagement. In it, you’ll join Boston University on its journey, and its partnership with Salesforce, to deliver one connected platform for lifelong learning and engagement. 

Meet Ruby, FSU’s Chatbot and the Future of Conversational AI

The Connected Student Report also examines the role of AI in student support. It found that “students are also interested in more digital and flexible options for services, according to Kedra Ishop, Vice President for Enrollment Management at the University of Southern California. They also want administrative responsibilities to be as convenient as possible, with alternative hours, remote service, self-help, and non-human contact options.”

Conversational AI, a technology that is proving incredibly popular across all kinds of industries and use cases, is a “non-human contact option” that provides unparalleled convenience in many ways, including 24-7 accessibility that is very attractive to students. How can today’s sophisticated chatbots go beyond the simple assistants of prior times and provide the experiences and service that students will truly appreciate and benefit from?

About the session:
This session will explore how Ruby, Florida State University’s chatbot, is revolutionizing student support. Attendees will learn valuable insights into building your own intelligent bots and digital assistants with Salesforce AI. If you’re interested in emerging technologies, and implementing them at your own organization, don’t miss this one!

Veronika’s highlights from the rest of the sessions

Those were Veroniki Kievich’s top five. Other interesting Salesforce Higher Education Summit 2024 sessions she highlighted are:

• How to Scale Your Student Success One-Stop Shop
• Deliver High-Impact Interactions with Experience Cloud
• Engaging Alumni from Online Programs with Slack

You can browse the whole session catalog here.

We hope you enjoy Salesforce Education Summit 2024!

Planning to attend Salesforce Education Summit 2024? We hope the event is an enjoyable and rewarding experience! 

If you would like to explore any of the Education Summit 2024 topics, or any other aspect of how Salesforce technology helps educational institutions, our team would love to talk. VRP Consulting is a certified, global Salesforce Partner working for many higher education organizations and others in the education sector – including leading institutions in North America. We’re passionate about enabling digital transformation in education, wherever and however we can.

Let’s discuss how you can transform student, alumni and educator experiences, boost your marketing and engagement, and much more. Contact us today.  

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About the Author

VRP Consulting

VRP is a global full-service Salesforce consulting, outsourcing and managed services partner, delivering across the entire Salesforce platform. As a Product Development Outsourcing (PDO) Expert (1 of 9 globally), a Salesforce.org Impact Partner, a Tableau Partner, a Mulesoft Partner and Partner Innovation Award winner in 2020, 2022 and 2023, we have the scale and expertise to deliver innovative solutions to customers of all sizes, locations and industries.