We made it !!! 9 events across the globe on the same day gathering people who all have in common an interest for Voice AI. Following the sun, leaving the skyline, it started in Melbourne and finished 20 hours later in SF.
In a way I believe we kind of made history… That was the first worldwide Voice AI community Event ! The important part in this sentence is actually not history or worldwide, it's WE, the people who came together to make something unique.
THE ORIGIN
Every time we wrapped a Voice AI event last year, in city after city, people kept asking us the same thing: "when is the next one?". I always knew at some point we had to get people in various locations to allow the community to meet on a regular basis without compromising the agnostic and neutral ground we try to have.
We had to find a way to not be on the ground ourselves, we had to find people we trust and know well to help us make this happen. Following a discussion with Miguel a month ago the idea of a global meetup germinated… I've reached out to people I've met over the last months, and asked would you be in ? Most said yes !!!
THE MAKING
Doing one event is not an easy task, it's like a voice bot… When you see it from the outside you're like "hey I can do it too !!!" True, but once you start working on it you realize there is way more work than it appears… For an event you need to pick the right venue, choose the food and drinks, plan the communication, get attendees, make sure that people who join will enjoy being together, find sponsors… Not this easy when you put all of this together.
We picked a "simple" format, a gathering to keep the on-the-day operations simple. Let's meet and chat already brings tons of value when the people who join share a common passion.
We decided to keep the room up to 15 people maximum, to allow really good networking and also to have a format where we could offer the food and drinks to everyone who joined.
We spent countless hours per city going through the registrations (over 900) and picking a few people for each one. This is personally something I don't like doing, saying no to someone who wants to join is not an easy task, especially knowing that on the day people may not turn up and that we could have given someone else the seat.
Still we accepted over 200 people, all working with voice technology who we thought would enjoy meeting fellow builders over a drink.
THE DAY
It all started in a wintery Melbourne at 6:30 (8:30 am UTC) hidden in a secret bar behind a vending machine !!! A super cool venue Mo and Chitrang picked.
Then a few hours later (13:00 UTC) Pranava and Priaansh, in a more formal but still super beautiful setting, started to welcome their guests who faced the rain to attend, the turnout in Bengaluru was amazing.
In a slick venue as Dubai has to offer Sriram started to welcome guests (14:30 UTC) while in Bengaluru attendees were still sharing a good meal.
Istanbul came after (16:00 UTC), in this city where Dilan had pulled the event together in less than a week, on a beautiful rooftop overlooking the city people all working with Voice technology joined and had hours to connect!
Half an hour after Istanbul started(16:30 UTC), Loris in a posh Parisian venue, started to welcome guests, with people traveling from as far as Lille to join. (We had the youngest ever Voice AI attendee there!).
In a pink and sexy setting (at 17:00 UTC) Marie Cécile and Davy welcomed their guests and started creating a friendly and fun atmosphere in Barcelona it was small room, good people, big smiles!
In London (17:30 UTC), where the first Voice AI Space event happened a bit more than a year ago, Evelyn and Sam made it happen on a super rooftop in the trendy Shoreditch area, it was really nice to see familiar faces joining and sharing a good time !
Came the time to cross the Atlantic and land in Toronto. Time for a little nap on my side, 15 minutes, like a sailor avoiding deep sleep… I kept an eye on the attendee list, answered emails, and read the first positive feedback.
At 22:30 UTC Miguel made the first Voice AI Space event in Toronto. Relax setting, long table central venue, it’s never an easy task to start but here too it all went smooth and people where apparently surprised to be offered food and drinks !
And finally a few hours later we landed in SF (01:30 UTC Aug 21). I have to admit that combining the lack of sleep with how important shipping an event in SF is for us, it was stressful, but Anusha and Manolo made it smooth. After a few hours of networking, drinks and food the sun left with the attendees and came to knock on my windows as it was 7am and something on my side…
I’ve done a few 24-hour shifts and run countless events while working as an event manager; I’ve never done something this fun!!! The adrenaline rush lasted all the way, and the goosebumps happened at the launch of every city! From all the event I’ve been part of, this one was unique
Unique because it was an event spanning the globe, unique because it was an event dedicated to people working in the same field carefully selected, unique because that was the first time we did this format, and truly unique because it all happened thanks to a group of amazing people all over the globe who all said a few weeks back "let's do it" !
Voice technologies are creating new ways to unite us humans and the machine, voice is the medium us humans have used to create civilization and communities, voice was a few days ago one of the reasons people all across the globe came together and honestly that's super cool !!!!!
In addition to the awesome people who made this possible, I believe the sponsors of this event also deserve to be named on this page. Massive thanks to Speechmatics, Twilio, and LiveKit, their trust and support made this possible. This event concept was a bit nuts, and they trusted us to make it happen, agreeing with a community-first principle: the rooms were not made for pitching a product, but for gathering the community.
THE LEARNINGS
There is a common saying "Alone you go faster, with others you go further", this event is a demonstration of it.
A “F*ck it let's do it” attitude has definitely played a big role in this. Like someone who create a startup, if you overthink it, sometimes you simply don't do it, putting the rails in front of you while the train is already moving is stressful but damn, when you reach the station and look back at the ride it's overly cool and satisfying. So I would say "keep being nuts" is another learning.
It's overly frustrating to put a cap on the number of attendees but for networking events it's important, to allow everyone to have a good time, that's a really important feedback we had. We dealt with no shows too, which are painful, but hey… not much we can do about it.
Trust the people not the process… I've made a few playbooks on how to run events, going deep into details… Those are useful but the key to success has nothing to do with them, the secret of success is good people, good people and good people !
CONCLUSION
The first Global Voice AI gathering has been a huge success thanks to the collaborative work of people on the ground supported by some amazing companies!
That was the first edition, we want to do it again, we will twist things based on our learnings, we will add a few cities and ship this super cool event again !!!
To close this episode he final words I believe should be…
Thank you, ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು, شكراً, Teşekkürler, Merci, Gràcies to everyone who has been part of it!!
Let's do it again !!!!!
