What better way to exemplify the power of innovation, coding, and creative thinking to kids than hosting a virtual Future Creators’ Summit for them on a platform that was built as a result of all three?

When WhiteHat Jr decided to host their first mega-event called CreatorSpace - Future Creators’ Summit, they faced the challenge of planning and hosting a large-scale virtual event focused on building a community of educators and young students - all within one month.

While the company had pivoted to using Zoom over the last year, for this occasion, they needed a platform that could handle the sheer ambitiousness of the event they were planning to hold: bringing together 60,000 kids and teachers from all over the world to learn from leaders in coding, math, and space, and from each other. 

This meant that they needed a platform that would let them create an exciting and impactful experience for children and adults as well. 

With Zuddl, they found the perfect solution. Coded to be 100% customizable, easy to use and always on brand, WhiteHat Jr was able to exercise the creativity they wanted, down to the last detail.  And the platform’s functionality meant that they could bring their large-scale event to life quickly and host it with confidence. 

The WhiteHat Jr team was able to achieve exceptional results. 

Here's how the WhiteHat Jr team used Zuddl in a creative manner to effectively engage a global audience from all age groups.

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Creating an eye-catching venue

Given that WhiteHat Jr's primary audience is young students, it was imperative that they could create an experience that thrilled and engaged young minds from the get-go.

Having used conventional webinar tools until this point, the WhiteHat Jr team was looking for customizability in terms of look and feel, as well as interactive features that could sustain the attention of the attendees. 

Using Zuddl's easily customizable templates, the team was able to put up graphics, banners, videos and more in the virtual venue to wow the young audience within seconds of entering the event.

"Our audience is primarily children, however, we obviously do have teachers and parents attending as well. So, it was important for us that the platform is appealing to children specifically, but simultaneously not appearing too child-like for an adult audience. The feature set that Zuddl provided allowed us to customize various aspects to the last detail to allow universal appeal" commented a representative from WhiteHat Jr's event team.

Seamless transition between the backstage and mainstage experience

WhiteHat Jr expected over 100+ speakers comprising industry leaders, educators, and children. This meant that the WhiteHat Jr team would need to seamlessly transition between pre-recorded videos and live sessions to keep the audience tuned in, and the event schedule moving on track. 

With Zuddl’s backstage functionality, speakers could prep in a space that is not visible to the audience. While ‘backstage’, they were also able to watch and follow the live sessions as well, and so were able to join the session easily when it was their time to do so. 

Both the user end and the backend interface are deliberately designed in a way that anyone over 8 years and over can use it intuitively. “The backstage feature was a standout feature for us. It was important for us to have a space that was not visible to the audience and where our team could successfully manage a speaker list of over 100 people" said the representative from the WhiteHat Jr team.

‍"Earlier, we used other ways to manage speakers and audience members, like having two parallel but separate calls. One specifically for speakers to prepare just before their sessions and another with the audience. But with Zuddl, to have control over how speakers seamlessly move from backstage to mainstage proved to be a must-have feature for such events."

Interactivity beyond chat functionality

Typically, virtual platforms only offer chat functionalities in terms of interactivity. But with Zuddl’s engagement tools, the Summit turned into an engaging space for discussion. Using the multiple-choice Q&A, and Chat, kids were able to learn from and ask questions directly to globally acclaimed experts.

Especially popular during sessions was the Emoji Reaction feature for both speakers and attendees! The kids loved expressing their enthusiasm with the tool and speakers loved the live visual feedback about how the attendees were responding to their sessions.

The speakers in turn, using Polls and a thoughtfully designed moderation interface, were able to host a number of fun quizzes, task challenges, and more for children to enable immersive learning.

And to add more fun into the mix, WhiteHat Jr also set up a Selfie Booth within the virtual venue! Attendees could take their picture and download it as a memento of a great experience. This feature was incredibly popular, with 4,000+ attendees using it!

Mobilizing a community of creators

For WhiteHat Jr, this summit was not focused on products or direct ROI. The WhiteHat Jr team envisioned the summit as a space that would bring together bright young minds from across the world to meet and interact with several globally acclaimed industry experts. 

This WhiteHat Jr. event was focused on building and mobilizing a community of young coders, teachers and industry leaders. Additionally, with real-time metrics, the WhiteHat Jr team was able to tell how engaged the audience was while the event progressed. This allowed them to assess how effective their content was beyond just attendance data.

This complex WhiteHat jr. event that had over 100 speakers was materialized very efficiently within a 4-hour timeline with Zuddl's virtual event platform. The result was a truly unique event that helped catalyze a lifelong passion for exploration and experimentation in the STEM subjects in children.