Event Tech of the Week: @topi
Today, we’re talking about: Topi
Company/Tool Name: Inspherio
Website: http://topi.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/topi
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/topiapp
What is the “problem” that your tool seeks to solve?
Our mission is to connect people in a random world.
Meeting others is a top priority for event participants. However, it requires time, energy, and a fair amount of luck. We’re simply giving serendipity a hand by facilitating connections and networking opportunities. Our mobile solution makes it quick and natural to join new communities and engage around common interests.
What is the best audience for this tool? Corporate events? Social? Other? Large? Small?
While Topi’s core technology is around engagement, the app comes fully loaded with all the digital content event planners should expect: agenda, speaker bios, surveys, sponsorships, and so on. We’ve also added our own registration and event website tools to make it even more comprehensive. Topi is versatile enough to be used for small social gatherings/meetups, internal events, or large professional conferences/shows. With our unique geo-location technologies (GPS and Beacons), Topi is also a well-suited solution for physical places such as conference centers, hotels, concert venues, stadiums, etc.
What does your tool help event planners do better?
Unequivocally, the Topi solution helps spark new connections among event participants. First, we make it seamless for attendees to register via our geo-fencing technology. Our algorithms then make sure each attendee is presented with the best conversation groups based on relevant topics and people. Event planners are always in control and can interact with attendees via broadcasts and surveys, for example.
Since we’re all about efficiency, we now offer event planners a ‘one-stop’ model for their planning needs: fully integrated registration platform, automatically generated event web page and event networking app. Planners have better things to do than to deal with multiple vendors. Our solution makes the planning more seamless and cost-effective.
How is your tool different from/better than the competition?
We’ve approached events from a drastically different angle. While all event apps focus on digital content management first, Topi’s initial goal was to provide a solution for all participants to interact with each other. We bring social networking to the business world. Attendees instantly love it because they’re already familiar with how Topi works. Planners are excited to create what they describe as “curated social networks” for their events. In a matter of minutes, they have their own Facebook combined with WhatsApp communication features.
What is the single coolest feature of your product?
It’s hard to pick one. Our geo-location expertise is certainly quite unique and our Beaconnected program has so far received a lot of attention. The one fundamental element of Topi that people value is our ‘one download’ model. Simply said, once Topi is installed on devices, it stays there. Attendees love it because as they go to multiple events, their Topi app seamlessly transforms itself and displays the then relevant event branding, features, content and community. Event planners love it because outside of the efficiency and cost advantages of this model, they also see higher than usual app adoption rates. Our data shows that event participants use Topi in between events to stay in touch, connect with like-minded people, make introductions, etc. In effect, Topi becomes a new channel for interactions; this “ongoing community” is key to planners and attendees.
Anything else we need to know?
People often ask us: “How did you come up the name Topi?” If you Google it, a topi is a “highly social and fast antelope species” which we thought was very appropriate for our solution. For more on the tale of the “3 Topis”, click here. We are a fun team with a robust technology. We believe this combination is a great fit for the creative nature of event planners.
This weekly series spotlights a new tech tool that is designed to help make planning events much more seamless. Whether it’s using event software to track every detail from start to finish or mobile apps that deliver content to attendees’ fingertips, these technologies allow planners to divert their stress to more critical issues like deciding which napkin color looks best.
Add A Comment