Micepad: Connecting people through an interactive and personalized virtual event experience
About Micepad
Micepad is an enterprise event app and virtual event platform that enables dynamic global conferences featuring AI-driven networking, multiple live chats, and personalized engagement in a seamless online experience. Clients range from small businesses to global players such as Visa and Enterprise Singapore. Based in Singapore and Taiwan with presence in Hong Kong and Malaysia, Micepad has won the “Most Innovative Startup Award” and the “World Summit Awards” in the business and commerce category.
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact usMicepad achieves seamless event transmission for thousands of global participants, enables real-time scaling based on conference demand, and reduces infrastructure costs by 60% with Google Cloud.
Google Cloud results
- Frees time to build innovative solutions by saving five hours per week for each developer with Cloud Build
- Enables virtual doctor conference featuring 3,000+ participants from Asia, Africa, and Middle East with zero downtime
- Advances Micepad's sustainability mission with 100% renewable energy commitment
Slashes server costs 60% with Google Kubernetes Engine
For many people, conferences are physical gatherings. But Jie Hao Tan and James Gwee, co-founders of events platform Micepad, are on a mission to prove that virtual events or conferences can be just as powerful, if not more, than events that require attendees to be present in person. After all, many of these events have moved online due to COVID-19.
The solution they have built enables thousands of people around the world to gather in a dynamic digital setting, featuring multiple chats and AI matchmaking that allow a level of interactivity that's hard to achieve in live events.
Micepad's own history straddling live and online events fuels insights into how to enable vibrant human connectivity in the COVID era. The company started out in 2013 as a content management app for live conferences. Since the beginning of 2020, it has leveraged that experience to develop unique digital event features that enable people to hold personalized, engaging conversations.
"Our mission is to make digital events more fun and engaging, so people continue to gather virtually even when they no longer need to. Google Kubernetes Engine and Cloud CDN enables us to run demand-based auto scaling and near-zero latency, enabled by Google Cloud's global network of data centers." James Gwee, CTO and co-founder, Micepad
"We've seen how other platforms try to simulate a live event environment through avatars and 3D representations of booths. However, our approach is to place human interaction as the priority of any event, focusing on one-to-one interactions," says James Gwee, CTO and co-founder of Micepad.
Micepad's AI matchmaker, for example, connects people with similar interests more effectively than working a room and groups together participants in the same industry or speciality. Its innovative user interface enables participants to engage in up to five chats while listening to a speaker, enabling real-time networking on conference content. It even allows participants on different ends of the world to arrange online meetings at a convenient hour.
To succeed in its new mission, Micepad had to offer an experience as seamless as a live event for thousands of global attendees. Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and Cloud CDN provided the transmission and scalability Micepad needed to keep dozens of chats, seminars, and presentations, as well as other features such as live polling, question and answer sessions, and photo sharing, glitch-free across time-zones. As long as the event organizer keeps the event open, attendees would be able to view and replay content from the event on demand and set up private meetings with other attendees. This virtual solution falls in line with Micepad's sustainability plans to lower global carbon emissions by reducing the need for conference travels.
"Our mission is to make digital events more fun and engaging, so people continue to gather virtually even when they no longer need to," says James, the Micepad CTO. "Google Kubernetes Engine and Cloud CDN enable us to run demand-based auto scaling and near-zero latency, enabled by Google Cloud's global network of data centers."
"The best part about Google Kubernetes Engine compared to VMs is how it enables us, as a boot-strap startup, to rein in costs. Instead of having to provision resources to support 5,000 people over 24 hours, regardless of how many are online, we can now autoscale with Kubernetes."
—James Gwee, CTO and co-founder, MicepadAchieving scale and cost savings with Google Cloud
Micepad migrated to Google Cloud from a rival provider in 2018, after Jie Hao and James joined the Google Cloud for Startups Program and discovered the Google Developer Group (GDG), a global community of tech innovators that exchanges ideas and insights on optimizing cloud computing tools. After attending a few GDG meetups with fellow developers and Google Cloud workshops, Jie Hao and James felt they had enough creative insights and collaborative support that brought confidence in a full-stack migration.
Specifically, the GDG sessions introduced the Micepad team to the power of Google Kubernetes Engine, which enables seamless Kubernetes autoscaling, after five years working exclusively with virtual machines (VMs). Through the developer community, Micepad also learned about Cloud Build as a driver of CI/CD processes, which enable automated code deployment. It's a powerful tool that frees up the development team from mundane tasks such as testing and launching new features and products.
Today, GKE and Cloud Build work alongside Cloud CDN (which ensures near-zero latency through Google Cloud's global data center network) to power Micepad's seamless, scalable virtual events.
From an all VM environment, Micepad has moved to being hosted 90% on GKE. This makes sense for a platform that organizes conferences ranging from 20 to 5,000 participants, where attendance fluctuates greatly over event schedules and time zones.
GKE enables Micepad to autoscale according to demand, bringing power, flexibility, and cost savings. From spending roughly $100,000 per year on server costs, the platform today is down to $40,000 per year for a 60% saving. This enables Micepad to invest more on building innovative products.
"The best part about Google Kubernetes Engine compared to VMs is how it enables us, as a self-funded startup, to rein in costs," says James. "Instead of having to provision resources to support 5,000 people over 24 hours, regardless of how many are online, we can now autoscale with Kubernetes."
Meanwhile, Cloud Build has freed up the Micepad team to focus on building new interactive event features, instead of testing and deploying those features, saving each developer one hour per day.
"Google Cloud helped us find ways to save money. This was counterintuitive because the assumption is that vendors want to bill as much as possible. Instead, Google Cloud comes in and shows us how to pay them less. It really gives us the feeling that Google Cloud cares about startups."
—James Gwee, CTO and co-founder, MicepadFinding proactive support and a sustainable ecosystem of knowledge sharing and discovery
Micepad's experience with the Google Startup Program provided a support network and team spirit that James says was crucial to enabling Micepad to succeed without VC funding.
Google Cloud not only provided Micepad credits that gave it freedom to focus on building solutions, it also offered what James calls "a learning and collaborative environment" that fostered creative synergies.
After the startup program, the partnership ethos deepened further as Google Cloud worked with Micepad on tweaking system designs to find ways to rein in cloud computing costs.
"Google Cloud helped us find ways to save money. This was counterintuitive because the assumption is that vendors want to bill as much as possible. Instead, Google Cloud comes in and shows us how to pay them less," says James. "It really gives us the feeling that Google Cloud cares about startups."
The fruits of Micepad's Google Cloud migration were demonstrated recently during a global medical conference. More than 3,000 attendees from around the world, including Pakistan, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia, gathered virtually on Micepad to share research findings and build partnerships. The three-day conference enabled dozens of lectures, seminars, and networking opportunities without a glitch, James says, thanks to the seamless transmission and scalability enabled by Google Cloud.
"It's inspiring to know we're enabling doctors from different corners of the world to come together and share research on Micepad," says James. "In a live conference, these doctors would need to fly in from around the world. Even without travel restrictions, that's a massive challenge. Google Cloud is helping us bring the world together through virtual events."
James says Micepad also feels "at home" with Google Cloud because of a shared vision of sustainability. Micepad's original content management app enables event organizers to eliminate paper waste by pooling materials on tablets. This sustainability vision continues to drive Micepad forward, as it produces virtual events that reduce carbon footprint in global travel.
Google Cloud's commitment to 100% renewable energy in global operations gives Micepad "peace of mind" that it's causing no indirect environmental harm through the underlying cloud infrastructure.
Building the future of global events with AI solutions
Micepad currently deploys a proprietary AI algorithm to power its matchmaking tool that enables conference participants with shared interests to find each other. As it evolves, the platform plans to add more interactive features enabled by machine learning that will leverage Google Cloud solutions.
For example, it foresees using Dialogflow to build conference chatbots and BigQuery to enable recommendations and personalization capabilities for each individual attendee.
"We're excited about our future enabling human connections and serendipity through virtual events," says James. "We see unlimited opportunities with Google Cloud to enable a great meeting of minds wherever people happen to be."
Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Micepad
Micepad is an enterprise event app and virtual event platform that enables dynamic global conferences featuring AI-driven networking, multiple live chats, and personalized engagement in a seamless online experience. Clients range from small businesses to global players such as Visa and Enterprise Singapore. Based in Singapore and Taiwan with presence in Hong Kong and Malaysia, Micepad has won the “Most Innovative Startup Award” and the “World Summit Awards” in the business and commerce category.