From a group project to a substantial business

Whether you give a presentation in class, at a conference or at the workplace, iVoting allows you to take advantage of smartphones to ask your audience questions and display the results either during or after the poll. Its big plus: The system does not need any special hardware or software and is available free of charge. Recently, Harald Trautsch presented an improved version of iVoting, which is used by more than 1,000 businesses around the globe, including American Express and Nokia.

“I came up with the idea for iVoting a few years ago in the course of hosting the ‘Telefit’ IT roadshow for the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. At the time, we were using a very complicated voting tool that not only had poorly functioning remote controls and impractical software but was also expensive to rent. I noticed back then that almost everybody in the audience had a smartphone, which would allow us to solve the problem of how to ask audience members questions and get answers from them,” says Harald Trautsch, who started his first business at the age of 21 and has gone on to achieve multiple successes as an entrepreneur.

Developed in the course of the Global Team Project of the Global Executive MBA

The Global Team Project has been an integral part of the Global Executive MBA for many years. What makes it special is the fact that students from different Executive MBA programs join forces, across 3 continents and time zones, to work on a project without being physically in the same place. The members of a team will not meet in person until their project is complete.

“At the time, I managed to convince my team to take up my original idea and spend the 6 months that the Global Team Project was scheduled to last working on something tangible rather than a purely theoretical project. At the final MBA presentation in Minneapolis, we were therefore able to unveil not only our business plan, but also a beta version of iVoting, which, incidentally, was used on the ground for assessing the projects carried out by our peers,” says Harald Trautsch.

The idea of the iVoting is simple: With iVoting, presenters can ask their audience questions and let them answer with their smartphones. iVoting works in classrooms, at conferences, or even on a TV show. Presenters looking to do interactive events just need to:

1. Register online
2. Type in their questions
3. Type in the possible answers

Smartphones are the remote control for the poll: audience members use their own phones to answer questions and they do not need to register or install an app. Questions and results are displayed using a computer and a projector, which means: no extra equipment, software or extra costs for the event host.

In recent years, more than 1,000 individuals and businesses have used iVoting although the tool was only available as a beta tool. Following feedback from users, the team launched a new version in fall 2016. This version of iVoting has new features for presenters such as:

• control the system via your smartphone while giving presentations.
• choose to display results either in real time or once a poll is over.
• define correct answers in order to test your audience's knowledge, and display the results.
• use iVoting also during big events, thanks to the fact that results get processed more quickly.
• benefit from enhanced usability and a completely new design.

Life is too short for boring presentations. ;)