It was our pleasure to host a meetup in the Nepal’s biggest startup meet; the BizFest 2019. Though it was a platform for business houses I’ve asked the organizers via an email that whether we could be a part of it so as to pass the information about the ‘Google Local Guides’ to the visitors and introducing with available local guides.
I was hoping that the platform would be good for us as the host of the event was Google Business Group so people interested in Google services were expected to visit the event and it turned right. Thanks to the local guide @Surendra for informing me about the event. Not to be confused, the BizFest was hosted by the Google Business Group and ‘Lalitpur Interaction Session’ was our meetup in the event premises in DAV HS School.
The purpose of this meetup was to introduce the ‘Local Guides’ program to visitors.
The event time was from 10 AM to 6 PM and our meetup was from 11 AM to 3 PM. On 28 December, 2019 I reached to the venue at 9:30 for pre-arrangement. The organizers had placed a stall for us on the 2nd place. @RupendraNeupane had a Nepal Local Guides flex and had arrived after 10 AM. Having a good spot the visitors started to come to us from 10 AM. So I can say that our meetup was started one hour earlier. The first visitor was Ervin Darshan Singh. He was quite enthusiastic about the Local Guides program. We’re there till 3 PM passing the information to the visitors, answering their questions and getting the feedback. The visitors were redirected to www.localguidesconnect.com via QR code that was printed on the flex. I had some notepads and pens remained from Nepal National Meetup. Unfortunately it was not possible to distribute them to each visitor so I managed to share them to the most interactive visitors.
Visitor Types
- Google Map Users but not contributors – shared with them how to contribute and what to contribute
- Google Map Users but not the Local guides – asked them to open ‘My Contributions’ tab of Google Map app and join ‘Local Guides’ program
- Google Local Guides but unfamiliar to this site – redirected them to this site via QR code and by sharing URL
- Connect Live Applicant – shared our experience of our selection to Connect Live and how we couldn’t attend the event
- Previous Meetup Attendees – heard of each other
Personally I think that the meetup was fruitful to pass information to the crowd that we ‘Local Guides’ also exist and are different from ‘Tourist Guides’. Among many visitors, 71 visitors were willing to share their contact address with us so that we could inform them about the upcoming meetups.
I am very thankful to fellow Rupendra for assisting me to throughout the meetup in interacting with the visitors despite the chilling coldness. I got the notice that some of the Local Guides weren’t able to find us there as they reached to the venue after 3 PM. I am so sorry that we would have stayed till 6 PM but due to our personal circumstances we were able to stay there till the allocated time for meetup. I hope to meet you with upcoming meetups.
Please feel free to click the link below to watch photo album of the meetup:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/qq2Yi99i9kHT2X3v9
