Northstar

JAN-FEB 2018 19 meetings & conventions • mcmag-asia.com consumer grade experiences to enhance productivity and simplify tasks." Facial Recognition for Event Registration MIT Technology Review identified facial recognition as one of the breakthrough technologies in 2017. Facial recognition is maturing and we are seeing applications beyond security checks at airport and casinos. Zenus uses facial recognition cameras to identify attendees by searching a photo database of pre-registered attendees. "Face recognition makes the check-in process faster, smarter, and more secure," said Yi Shi, Co-Founder & CMO, Zenus, Inc. "Event planners who would like to reduce long lines should definitely give it a try!" Chatbot – Information at Your Fingertips Chatbot technology like Event2Mobile's EVA gathers information within the events database to answer questions about the event, the venue, and the speakers. Questions can range from who is the next keynote speaker to what is the wifi password. Attendees get information when they need and where they need it. EVA can serve multiple clients at the same time and is available anytime. "Events are unique in the sense that it is a gated community where attendees reduce their privacy concerns and are focused on discovery - people or knowledge," said Siddharth Jhunjhunwala, CEO, WS Group Pte. Ltd. "Providing natural interfaces such as voice and text access to everything around them is a key strategic advantage for event planners." Event2Mobile is a Web Spiders Group company. Bridge Online-Offline Gap at Events Despite the growth of online commerce, face-to-face meetings are an essential way of doing business in Asia. As Errol Lim, COO, Jublia.com pointed out that, "Meeting relevant contacts is (still) the main reason why business professionals attend events." Jublia specialises in matching contact and content at events. Attendees use Jublia to connect online with other attendees of similar interests and physically meet up at the event itself. The meeting application helps attendees make the right connection and extend the value of the event beyond the event itself. Universal Translator to Connect People With globalisation, more and more employees travel abroad to attend internal and external events. Incentive events take on the appearance of mini-United Nations where employees from different nationalities come together to develop business strategies and build relationships. To break down language barriers, Google delivers a solution that is right out of a sci-fi movie. Google Pixel Buds are wireless earbuds that can translate up to forty languages in real-time. In China, start-up iFlytek developed a speech-to- text conversion app that claims up to 98 percent accuracy in Chinese voice recognition. "Providing natural interfaces such as voice and text access to everything around them is a key strategic advantage for event planners ." – SIDDHARTH JHUNJHUNWALA, CEO, WS GROUP PTE. LTD. Above, and left: Facial recognition by Zenus and co-founder Yi Shi

• Cover