Executive Summary

TEDxChiangMai joined with Whova to help run their hybrid event at the National Astronomical Institute of Thailand (NARIT). The TEDxChiangMai “Re-Together” talk focused on sustainability, innovation, and many other inspirational topics. 

Attendees joined from across Thailand and online in other countries to listen to speakers with “ideas worth spreading”. A wide range of social, environmental, economic and technology issues were covered. Speakers and performers included experts from international organization such as the UN, universities, local startups, but also renowned artists and younger people sharing their ideas to create change and make an impact. With the assistance of Whova’s all-in-one event management platform, the organizers successfully engaged both in-person and remote attendees while efficiently coordinating the information of over twenty speakers and performers, the workshops, and other activities that took place onsite and online.

About TEDxChiangMai “Re-Together”

TEDx is an independently organized talk run by the local community, organized in the style of the worldwide Technology, Entertainment, and Design (TED) talks. Chiang Mai celebrated its 10th anniversary of running TEDx events with “Re-Together”. The main objectives were to inspire environmental change and collectively re-set, re-imagine, and re-align over 17 key goals in solving poverty, inequality, and more. 

With Whova’s help, the TEDx event smoothly coordinated agenda information and inspired networking between remote and in-person attendees.

Challenges

• Separate in-person and remote sessions

The TEDx event had many in-person sessions live streamed for a virtual audience. The organizers wanted to make sure these sessions stood out in the agenda for attendees to find easily.

• Coordinate speaker information 

With many prominent speakers joining from renowned institutes and universities, the organizers needed to effectively organize their information to ensure sessions ran smoothly.

• Engage in-person and remote attendees during sessions

One of the organizer’s main concerns was making sure remote attendees had the same opportunities to engage as in-person attendees, so they wanted to include online features to help all attendees participate.

• Encourage networking during the event 

The TEDx event connected almost 400 attendees from across the world, so it was important they had plenty of opportunities to engage and chat with both in-person and remote attendees.

Solutions

• Separate hybrid sessions using Whova’s track manager

Whova’s track manager made it easy to manage remote and in-person sessions. The TEDx organizers created different colored tracks to organize “on-site” or “online interactive” sessions so that attendees could identify virtual sessions in the agenda.

The organizers could tag each session with one or multiple tracks for attendees to view and add to their personal agendas. 

Besides utilizing the track manager to organize sessions, Whova automatically marks live-streamed sessions in the agenda with a video icon so attendees can quickly identify hybrid sessions. 

The organizers effortlessly embedded live streams into Whova’s platform by linking their Zoom accounts or directed attendees to view sessions through Zoom. 

Sessions displayed video icons and track names in the agenda

• Empower speakers to upload information on Whova’s Speaker Center

Whova’s Speaker Center significantly reduced the organizers’ workload by allowing speakers to upload their details. The organizers simply emailed personal links inviting speakers to fill in biography and session information. 

Speakers could update any last-minute changes, and Whova would automatically update the agenda and speaker pages. The organizers could also edit or add information at any point before the event. 

• Captivating virtual and in-person attendees with session live polling

The TEDx speakers took advantage of the session live-polling feature to capture attention and encourage interaction from remote attendees. 

The speakers utilized the polls to motivate attendees to discuss session topics or invite attendees to ask questions. They could gather poll results in real-time through the app. 

The in-app chat feature available in each session made it easy for remote and in-person attendees to interact online. Attendees could effortlessly chat with each other or the speakers during sessions. 

Live polling was not limited to speaker sessions; the organizers also created polls to broadcast before, after, and during the event. 

Attendees could access live polls on the web or mobile app

• Networking through Whova’s Community Board

The attendees took advantage of networking opportunities through Whova’s Community Board, an online chat forum on the app. They posted discussion topics designed to spark conversations and participated in remote or in-person meetups. The attendees also created a social group, “TEDx first-timers,” on the Community Board to facilitate group conversations. 

The icebreaker feature was especially popular; attendees used it to introduce themselves and share personal interests like their favorite vacation spots. 

The Community Board also inspired attendees to share and like or comment on photos in the app. Anything shared on the Whova app could easily be posted to personal social media accounts with the click of a button.

• Inspiring attendee engagement with gamification

The photo, caption, and community leaderboard contests were an exciting way for attendees to engage in friendly competitions to help them engage with the app.

In the community leaderboard contest, attendees could earn points based on their participation in surveys, polls, and session feedback. They also earned points when they posted discussion topics or participated in meetups, and the attendee with the most points at the end of the event won a prize. 

The photo and caption contests invited attendees to upload photos and create captions to win a prize. At the end of the event, the organizers distributed prizes for the most liked photos and hand-picked the most creative captions. They could also randomly select contest winners through Whova and announce the winners on the Community Board. 

• Exchanging information with the Business Card Scanner

Whova’s in-app business card scanner made networking at the TEDx event a breeze. Attendees simply scanned business cards and digitally stored them along with the attendee’s personal profile. 

After storing business cards, they had easy access to comprehensive online profiles complete with personal interests, academic, and work history.