Digital Transformation of the Helsinki Data Science Meetup

The event’s digital transformation focused on delivering an online experience that captured the same energy as the in-person gathering. This required a platform capable of handling live streaming, facilitating audience interaction, and providing immediate feedback, all while being easily accessible to a diverse audience. Additional challenges included designing a virtual event registration funnel that could capture and convert attendees effectively, and executing a marketing campaign to reach a wider audience beyond the existing community. The solution also needed to support robust live streaming capabilities that integrated smoothly into the event flow.

To address this, the following strategies were implemented:

• Live Streaming Integration: Utilised OBS for broadcasting the event, incorporating Restream to extend the reach across multiple social media platforms, and embedding the stream into the doWow media wall on DAIN Studios’ website.
• Interactive Media Wall: Designed a dynamic media wall using the doWow platform, that showcased live content, speaker slides, and real-time updates, creating an immersive virtual environment for attendees.
• Feedback Mechanism: Integrated a feedback form within the media wall, allowing participants to provide input without navigating away from the event interface.
• Linkedin Marketing: We focussed on LinkedIn as a major growth generator for online participation, supporting the digital transformation of the event with founders acting as advocates and sending personalised “VIP” invitations to high-quality audiences.
• Welcome Funnel: Using ActiveCampaign as the CRM, we built an intelligent automation funnel that sent targeted reminder emails to unconfirmed registrants. The system split virtual and physical registrations to ensure messaging was relevant to each group, helping to maximise turnout across both formats.

The digital transformation of the meetup successfully expanded its reach and engagement:

• Increased Participation: An increase of over 500% for online attendees joining through the doWow media wall.
• Enhanced Engagement: Viewer retention rate dramatically increased, exceeding 40 minutes on average for each live event, indicating sustained interest and quality traffic.
• Immediate Feedback: The integrated feedback form received over 25 responses on average per event, demonstrating active audience involvement.

Helsinki Data Science Meetup (HDSM) is a community-driven event series that brings together data science professionals, researchers, and enthusiasts to share knowledge, discuss industry trends, and explore cutting-edge innovations. Hosted in Helsinki, HDSM fosters collaboration through engaging talks, networking opportunities, and interactive sessions, making it a key platform for the region’s data science ecosystem.