Located in Scotland lies one of the top universities in the world, the University of Edinburgh. Each year, the University has the pleasure of hosting Engage Invest Exploit (EIE), an annual technology investor readiness program and showcase event. Since 2008, EIE has supported almost 500 tech start-ups and scale-ups who have raised over £750 million. These include FanDuel, Mallzee, Current Health, ZoneFox, Two Big Ears, pureLiFi, Float, Citruslabs, Amiqus, and more. While EIE has taken place in the physical form for 11 years running, 2020 had something else in store.
Like many other organizations around the world, the staff at the University of Edinburgh understood the vital need to shift their event strategy once the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The team pushed out their April 2020 conference to October later that year. However, after just a few short weeks, it became more apparent that the pandemic sweeping the nation was here to stay for quite some time. The events team at the University of Edinburgh knew they had options; thus, they took no hesitation in exploring them.
The team did their due diligence, conducting proper research and taking advantage of the demos offered by different virtual event platform providers on the market. Some providers failed to offer eye-catching visuals, while other virtual environments felt “flat” and non-immersive. Understanding that they needed to replicate what they typically offer in-person, the team needed a virtual platform that would provide the “wow-factor” like a physical event would. From the very first features down to the price point, the virtual event platform that made the grade and met the requirements set forth by the University was none other than 6Connex.