Fully focused,
having fun.

If a conference requires discussion to continue in smaller groups, OpenTalk will assist with the setup of break-out rooms and the assigning of participants. Rooms can be automatically created according to a range of different parameters. When group functions are used, the corresponding group rooms can be prepared in advance and participants assigned automatically.

Meanwhile, the conference moderators have everything under control: They can be called for assistance at any time and visit breakout rooms as required. A central event console gives access to all messages and advanced moderation features.

Need to quickly discuss an issue privately with another participant? You can do so without losing touch of what is going on in the main session. Open a sub-conference room to have a private conversation but keep following events of the main event - in a separate window, with reduced audio volume and a video thumbnail image.

This is interesting for political debates, but also for teachers. For example, this feature could be used to help students during quiet, individual work without disturbing the other students in the class.

Participants can share individual program windows or their entire screen with the audience. The speaker video will remains visible when sharing. OpenTalk also supports parallel screen sharing by multiple participants.

Who is up next? With our "Wheel of names", you can leave it to chance to decide. A fun feature that can introduce excitement and entertainment in the classroom.

But the wheel of names can do more: If the objective is that no one is to be left out of the conversation, the wheel can ensure that those who have already spoken will not be called up again.

There is a debating technique where the person who holds the "talking stick" is the only one allowed to speak, until they pass it on to the next person. They can express their thoughts properly, and there is no risk of interruption while they have the talking stick. When finished, they nominate the next speaker by passing on the stick.

With this feature, even difficult or emotional debates with many participants can be conducted in a calm, structured, and constructive manner. It also promotes inclusiveness, as those who may find it more difficult than others to speak up are encouraged to offer their contribution.

Polls can be used to quickly gauge opinions, run a question and answer session in class, or as a way to add variety to activities.

OpenTalk offers polls where answer options include free text input, yes/no, or a selection of predefined answers. These can also be prepared in advance and presented as required to enable lively and hassle-free moderation.

In addition to the common "Raise hand" gesture, OpenTalk supports many more features, such as choosing from different levels of urgency, which can be used to raise a point of order, or request topics to be added to the agenda, for example.

OpenTalk comes with speaker lists built in, so that moderators can manage individual speaker contributions as intended and give everyone the speaking time they are entitled to.

In virtual instruction, teachers can measure the engagement level in their classroom by inspecting and reordering the participant list to see the total speaking time for each participant, for example.

Effective team building: Any experienced team seminar leader knows the so-called "ball of yarn" activity, which is often used for welcoming and introducing participants who do not know each other yet.

After offering their own introduction, the current speaker will hold on to the string and throw the ball of yarn towards another person in the meeting, whose time it is to speak - over time, this will create a web of yarn between all participants. When the last person has had their say and introductions are finished, everyone ends up connected to everyone else.

During any video conference, it is possible to enter into a one-to-one audio chat with another participant by using the whisper key. The conversation won't be overheard by the people in the main session.

Video conferencing can be fun: At school, university, or at work. Offering a variety of features is a breath of fresh air, keeps the suspense going, clears the mind and enables positive interaction between participants. Gamification is a central design aspect of OpenTalk. Examples are the "Wheel of names", theming, and the whisper button.

Our chat feature allows users to send messages to single, multiple, or all participants of a session. This also applies to group discussions. Chat groups are set up automatically to help users avoid chatting to the wrong people by mistake.

Our roadmap:

Registered participants will be able to create their own contact lists for preferred chat partners.

Users will also be able to post questions to the moderator while running a group discussion. All participants can then vote up questions for the moderator or podium to see, to help them steer a session effectively and address those topics first that are most relevant to the audience.