You may have heard the term circulating at conferences or tech events: “Braindate.” Big events — ranging from C2 Montréal to the Paris Peace Forum to TED conferences — have used Braindates as part of their programming. But what exactly is a Braindate? And are Braindates something useful for your next event?
It’s a date for your brain
In essence, a Braindate is a meeting of minds. Braindate is a platform for connection, conceived by Christine Renaud and her peers at Montréal education and events company e180. As a Certified B Corporation, e180 aims to unlock greatness by helping humans learn from one another.
Over the past decade, the e180 technology has helped people around the world learn from each other and form valuable connections based on shared interests and challenges. Participants at events (in-person or virtual) use the Braindate platform to book one-on-one or small group meetings from a crowd-sourced topic market. And then the magic of human exchange occurs!
For the sake of peer learning
At Braindate they firmly believe that a successful peer learning experience is one that is self-directed, experiential and collaborative.
- Self-directed: What is meaningful and motivating for you right now? What do you want to learn? What challenges are you facing? How do you define your own success?
- Experiential: Learning is iterative—I give something to you, you give something back to me, and out of that exchange we create and experience something new.
- Collaborative: We all have something valuable to share. Just like many have helped us in the past, we can also have an impact on others by sharing our experiences and our knowledge with them.
And it is often through something as simple as a conversation, that we can achieve genuine learning.
The numbers
The Braindate platform is an attractive option for events, organizations and communities who want to provide more than traditional networking for their people. And the numbers are impressive.
Braindate participants have booked more than 69,000 one-on-one and group meetings with each other to date. These meetings have led to countless valuable connections and nearly 150,000 hours of conversation among participants from around the world so far.
Inviting connections on all platforms
Much more than facilitating the simple exchange of business cards, Braindate works to create genuine moments of inspiration and exchange. The type of exchanges that lead not only to valuable relationships but also meaningful personal and professional growth — on any platform.
There isn’t a stark difference between a virtual and in-person Braindate. In both contexts, users are empowered to choose what they would like to discuss and pick whom they would like to discuss the subject with. Similarly, whether virtual or in-person, users have access to a team of learning concierges (real humans!) who are available to guide them throughout the experience, from lending tech support to helping them pick the right conversations to join.
Now, is this something that would augment your event? To explore options, reach out to explore partnership options with e180.
Cheat sheet
Company: e180
Website: braindate.com
Contact: partnerships@e180.co
Twitter: @e180
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