Networking online at Kaleidoscope 2020!
Last year, ITU Kaleidoscope conference was carried out completely online. Despite the change in format of the conference and delivery of our various sessions, this conference continued to provide a platform for insightful and forward looking discussions, while fostering a space where participants could still network and form meaningful connections in a number of innovative ways!
Mystery Coffee
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Mystery Coffee is an online tool that allows participants to voluntarily meet other registered participants for a one-on-one virtual coffee. This tool recreates the corridor conversations that take place at a conference through an automated matchmaking system, pairing participants together at random. Signing up for a Mystery Coffee was open to all registered participants at the Kaleidoscope conference, on a voluntary basis. The system ran for three months, from November 2020 to January 2021 where participants could select to be paired every two or every four weeks, offering the chance to share a coffee and meaningful conversation before, during and after the conference. |
Coffee breaks
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Coffee breaks were scheduled each day, midway through the programme. During this time, participants were able to move into the breakout rooms that launched at the end of the morning session, encouraging interaction in smaller groups and on topics that were not strictly in the form of an academic presentation. Each breakout room had a leading question for the day to focus the conversation. In addition to the four (4) rooms with leading questions, there was one room open for miscellaneous conversation, and another for a virtual mentorship coffee. Participants could move freely between rooms for the duration of the coffee break.
Once the allotted time for the coffee break was reached, the breakout rooms were closed and participants directed back to the main session automatically.
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Virtual mentorship coffee
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Virtual mentorship coffees took place during the coffee break, within a particular room amongst the breakout rooms provided. Invited guests to the conference, including keynote speakers, were present in the virtual mentorship coffee, allowing participants the opportunity to engage with these guests in smaller groups and to discuss an array of topics, from their contribution at the conference to their current research interests.
As with the coffee breaks described above, once the time afforded to the breakout rooms ended, participants were redirected to the main session of the conference.
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MyEvents
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MyEvents forms part of the internal ITU tool, MyWorkspace, the same meeting tool used for the Kaleidoscope conference. MyEvents allows participants to view the complete participants list. In addition to providing the profiles of all participants and speakers, the system also lists 'Suggested' participants who have similar interests, based on the keywords provided in the 'Preferences' section of each registered participant's profile.
MyEvents displayed all the participants at Kaleidoscope 2020 and offered a way for for attendees to reach out and get in touch with one another. Participants were encouraged to update their profile beyond the default settings in order to make full use of this tool.
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