Organizers looking for software for their virtual or hybrid academic conference usually come across online tools pretty quickly that promise a first-class event experience. However, only very few solutions can meet the unique demands of a fully digital or hybrid academic conference.

With everyone eager to see in-person conferences return for good, organizers and participants pin their hopes on the much-discussed rule that people have to be either vaccinated, recovered or tested if they want to attend a public event. If you want or need to implement this for your conferences, keep in mind that participants need to prove their status – but you are not allowed to collect vaccination data.

January 14, 2021 marked the start of the 3rd Swiss Congress on Gifted and Talented Education, organized by the FHNW School of Education. Initially planned as an in-person event, the congress had to be moved to a fully digital format for the first time. This proved to be a real challenge for the organizers of the three-day event, but – without giving away too much too soon – they mastered it successfully in every respect. Our software helped achieve this success.

Live content can make a conference more vivid, but it doesn’t take live sessions only to achieve this. Presentations and other parts of the program can be pre-recorded and uploaded prior to the start. In addition, there are many organizers aiming for an interesting schedule with live sessions, but still want to offer participants the opportunity to view all the sessions later at their leisure.

RMTP, OBS and VoD – these are just a few of all the abbreviations organizers encounter whenever they learn about the technical side of their planned virtual conference. And usually, these terms are “explained” by using even more other unknown terms and abbreviations. We’ll try to make it more beginner-friendly.