Building a Voting Platform to Reach 2 Million
We built a dynamic social voting platform that helped the American Society of Mechanical Engineers reach more than 2 million people.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
A non-profit that fosters collaboration across the global engineering community
IoT Solutions
Software Development, Product Design
Project Timeline
12 weeks
Tech Stack
Ruby on Rails
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is a non-profit that fosters collaboration across the global engineering community. A major part of ASME’s mission is support for hardware-led social innovation. To further this cause, ASME decided to launch an event series in the United States, Kenya, and India to highlight innovators working on physical products that will have a social impact.
I was really impressed with the work Very did and their commitment to our relationship. Every dollar we spent with Very was efficiently spent, and I can’t say that about the other firms we’ve worked with.
Paul Scott
Former Executive Director, ASME ISHOW
The Challenge
Paul Scott, the executive director for ASME’s foundation, was tasked with launching a global competition for hardware businesses. Because the competition would rely heavily on social voting, he needed a platform for social voting and event registration. Because of ASME’s highly technical target audience, Paul knew they had to get the online experience right.
Though ASME had an in-house team, they wanted to find an outside firm to look at the concept with a fresh perspective. Paul was impressed by our experience in the social impact space as well as our domain expertise in competitions, and he asked us to help make the competition a success.
The Process
We took ASME’s concept and iterated on it, providing working software with each release. Throughout development, Paul appreciated the flexibility to change the requirements and change direction. In the end, we developed a platform that became a virtual “home” for the “Hardware Led Social Innovators.” All communication entries, event registration (via Eventbrite), social voting, and short-listing happened through the platform, which was built to be reusable for each competition.
The Results
Working with ASME, we validated the end-product through iterative testing, to ensure it would facilitate a successful event.
And it did: the platform was both elegant and effective, leveraging ASME’s existing assets to reach millions of people. Ultimately, more than 250,000 votes were cast, and a foundation was laid for ongoing functionality.
After launch, a few things happened…
2M
Reached By The App
With this app, the ASME was able to reach more than 2 million people.
In the years since the original competition, the platform has performed seamlessly from the perspective of both the judges and the voters. Paul says that the look-and-feel of the platform fits their constituency and that user feedback has been positive, particularly around ease of use.
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