Posted September 10, 2020

hile virtual meetings and Zoom happy hours have filled both personal and professional schedules over the past six months, it still feels nearly impossible to stay engaged and excited about online networking. There’s even a good chance you’re reading this while listening to one of the countless Zoom calls on your calendar today.

But one company out of Georgia Tech — Atlanta-based Gatherly — is rethinking the very structure of virtual conferences and just might be the answer to those fighting Zoom fatigue during endless video calls.

Gatherly is designed to improve digital interaction. Moving away from the one speaker, many listeners model used on Zoom conferences, the video conferencing platform is designed to seamlessly allow individuals to navigate a virtual conference center and meet individual attendees along the way.

Co-Founder Christopher Cherian told Hypepotamus that Gatherly is focused on driving virtual engagement as offices remain closed and in-person events continue to be cancelled in 2020. “People are itching to go back to in-person events because they’re tired of staring at ‘conferences’ that are essentially endless youtube videos,” said Cherian.

“GoToWebinar’s 2020 report suggested that increasing attendee engagement involved using the ‘raise hand’ feature a little more…which we firmly disagree with. Increasing attendee engagement involves using more natural ways of letting individuals participate, and creating long lasting connections,” he continued.

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