Enterprise Event App for a Conference Company
The official delegate app for Virtue Insight's pharma, healthcare and life-sciences conferences, pairing a live event agenda with an attendee directory and real-time one-to-one messaging, shipped for iOS, Android and web from a single Flutter codebase.
01 / The Challenge
A conference business running on paper badges and business cards
Virtue Insight has produced pharma, healthcare and technology conferences since 2009, across India, the UK, the EU and the USA. The delegate experience, though, still depended on a printed agenda and whoever you happened to meet at the coffee break. The brief was to put the whole event, and everyone in the room, in the attendee's pocket without asking anyone to hand out a personal phone number.
Agendas, speaker line-ups and sponsor lists change right up to the day of the event, so a printed programme is out of date before the first session starts
Delegates wanted to reach the right person in the room, but professional conference networking can't require attendees to exchange personal phone numbers or emails
Attendees arrive on phones and work on laptops, so the same product had to feel native on iOS and Android and equally usable at desktop width
Messaging between strangers at a professional event needs real moderation controls, not just a send button
Sessions get moved and speakers get swapped on the day, so schedule changes and new messages had to reach delegates instantly rather than at the next refresh
App Screenshots
Designed for seamless delegate networking
Live session agendas, attendee profiles, and real-time one-to-one messaging across mobile and web.
02 / Here is What We Did
One Flutter codebase, a real-time backend, and a permission model built around the event
We delivered the product end to end: the Flutter client for iOS, Android and web, the REST and WebSocket API behind it, and the Firebase Hosting pipeline that ships the web build. Chat permission is derived from event registration on the server, so who you can message is a property of the conference you're attending, not something the app decides.
Every screen renders from the same widget tree at every breakpoint, so a change to the agenda view lands on the phone, the tablet and the desktop web client in one deploy.
Events & Agenda Core
Built the event directory and detail experience, day-by-day agenda with expandable sessions, speakers, tiered sponsors, reasons to attend and a mapped venue, on a REST API with a Dio-based client and Provider state.
Real-Time Messaging
Layered in an authenticated WebSocket channel carrying conversation history, live message delivery and read receipts, with client-side message tokens so an optimistically rendered message reconciles with the server copy instead of duplicating.
Three Platforms, One Deploy
Wrapped it in a responsive shell, desktop sidebar and mobile drawer across 600/1024/1440 breakpoints, with light and dark themes, and wired GitHub Actions to build and deploy the Flutter web client to Firebase Hosting on every merge.
03 / Features
Everything a delegate needs, from the agenda to the conversation after it
Event directory with a full detail view: day-by-day agenda with expandable sessions, speakers grouped by session role, sponsors grouped by tier, reasons to attend, and a venue section with an embedded map and tap-to-call.
Per-event attendee directory showing name, job title, company and photo, with a one-tap route from any profile straight into a conversation.
Real-time one-to-one chat over an authenticated WebSocket, conversation history, live delivery, read receipts and image sharing with a full-screen pinch-to-zoom viewer.
Server-side chat gating: only delegates registered for an event can open a conversation from it, backed by block-user and report-message controls in every thread.
Firebase Cloud Messaging push with local-notification fallback, tapping an alert deep-links into the exact chat, and notifications are suppressed while that thread is already on screen.
A responsive shell that runs the same code on phone, tablet and desktop web, with light and dark themes, shimmer loading states, offline detection, and events, FAQ and contact browsable before a delegate signs in.
04 / Technologies
Flutter on the front, a real-time API behind it, deployed on every merge
05 / Results & Impact
From first commit to the App Store in about six weeks
“Virtue Insight Connect is the official networking app designed exclusively for attendees of Virtue Insight conferences. Whether you're attending a pharma summit, data conference, or healthcare forum, this app helps you make the most of your event experience.”
Virtue Insight Connect, App Store listing
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Other products we have shipped
Let's put your whole event in your attendees' pockets.
Tell us how your events run today and we'll bring the app, the real-time backend and the release pipeline to match it.
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