Simple conference voting, instant results: how an MIT and CERN meeting let participants pick the winning talks and posters
Case study: Gravitational Waves in the era of AI · CERN, Switzerland · 5–8 May 2026
How the organizing committee of a physics and AI meeting ran its best-talk and best-poster awards using InstaJudge, an online judging platform built for audience voting, with no app for participants to install.
At a glance
- Meeting:Gravitational Waves in the era of AI
- Organizing Committee:MIT, CERN
- Venue:CERN, Switzerland
- Dates:5–8 May 2026
- What was judged:best conference talks and posters
- Who voted:registered participants, local and remote
- Mode:Pick the Winner (one choice per voter; the most votes win)
- How it ran:participants voted from their phones via a shared QR code or voting link sent by email and shared on Zoom
- Time to result:results available immediately after voting closed
“Throughout the entire voting process, I received zero questions or complaints from participants about how to vote or any technical issues. For a conference organizer, that is probably the best outcome one can hope for.”
Katya Govorkova, MIT, organizing committee, Gravitational Waves in the era of AI
The challenge
Recognizing the best talks and posters is one of the most rewarding moments of any scientific meeting, and one of the most awkward to run well. The organizing committee of “Gravitational Waves in the era of AI” wanted the award decided by the people best placed to weigh the work: the participants themselves. That meant opening the vote to all registered participants, local and remote, simple enough for attendees to use without instruction, transparent enough that the result would be trusted, and fast enough to announce while the session’s energy was still in the air.
Paper ballots and general-purpose form tools can make those goals harder to achieve, especially when the vote needs to be fast, simple, and trusted. This is why more organizers now look to paperless, online voting systems.
Finding the right online judging tool
The committee evaluated several voting platforms before choosing InstaJudge as their conference judging software. The first option they tried proved difficult to navigate and configure. InstaJudge stood out for the opposite reason: a clean, intuitive setup with no app for participants to download and no login required. They opened a link, and they were in.
Configuring the vote took very little time: a “Pick the Winner” poll in which each participant selects one candidate and the most-voted item wins. An unexpected benefit emerged during setup. Because each voting option could include its own supporting information, the committee embedded links to each talk or poster’s abstract and presentation materials directly in the ballot, allowing participants to review the candidates thoroughly before voting.
Audience voting for conference awards, decided on the spot
On judging day, the process was effortless. QR code voting meant that the organizer could share a code and a voting link; participants reviewed the candidates and cast their votes from their own phones. The organizer watched the tally build in real time on InstaJudge’s scoring dashboard, and when the voting window closed, ended the poll and had the final result immediately, with no ballots to gather and no spreadsheet to reconcile.
The outcome
In May 2026, the organizing committee of a physics and AI meeting at CERN used InstaJudge to let all registered participants, local and remote, vote for the best talks and posters from their phones, with final results the moment voting closed.
- All registered participants could take part. Opening the vote to local and remote participants made the award broadly owned rather than decided behind closed doors.
- The result was instant. The winners were known the moment voting closed.
- Frictionless voting, at scale. A large group of first-time users voted without a single question or technical complaint.
- The organizer would do it again and recommend InstaJudge to colleagues.
Planning best-talk or best-poster awards at your own meeting? See how audience voting would work for your program in minutes.
In their words
“I was honestly impressed by how clean and straightforward the interface was. The setup process was intuitive, and the platform provided all the functionality we needed, and actually more than we initially expected.
We were able to choose exactly the type of poll that matched our use case: participants could select one option from a list, and the item with the most votes would win. Setting this up was simple and took very little time.
An unexpected benefit was that each voting option could contain additional information. Since our voting items were conference talks and posters, we could include the abstract and links to the presentation materials directly within the voting system. This made it much easier for participants to review the candidates before voting and added value beyond simply collecting votes.
When it came time for the actual voting, the process was seamless. I shared the QR code with participants, they scanned it and voted, while I could monitor the results in real time. Once the voting period ended, I simply closed the poll and immediately had the final result. The whole process was transparent, efficient, and worked exactly as intended.
Overall, InstaJudge made what could have been a complicated organizational task remarkably simple, and I would definitely use it again for future conference voting and recommend it to my colleagues.”
Katya Govorkova, MIT, organizing committee, Gravitational Waves in the era of AI
About InstaJudge
InstaJudge is an online judging and audience voting platform for conferences and events. Organizers use it to run competition awards, best-poster voting, and presentation rubrics, with a setup that takes minutes to complete. Participants vote from their phones through a QR code or link, with no app to install and no login required. Results are tallied in real time and are final the moment voting closes. Start with a free poll at instajudge.com.
Frequently asked questions
Can conference participants vote for best poster or best talk without installing an app?+
Yes. With InstaJudge, participants open a link or scan a QR code and vote directly from their phone’s browser. There is no app to install and no login required.
How do you run audience voting for both in-person and remote conference attendees?+
The same voting link works for everyone. At the Gravitational Waves in the era of AI meeting at CERN, the link was shared as a QR code in the room, by email, and on Zoom, so local and remote registered participants voted through the identical process.
How fast are results available after conference voting closes?+
Immediately. The tally builds in real time while voting is open, and the final result is available the moment the organizer closes the poll, with no ballots to collect and no spreadsheet to reconcile.
Can voters see information about each candidate before voting?+
Yes. Each voting option can include supporting material. At the CERN meeting, the ballot contained links to each talk or poster’s abstract and presentation materials, so participants could review the candidates before casting their vote.
What voting format works best for a best-talk or best-poster award?+
A single-choice format is the simplest: each participant selects one candidate and the option with the most votes wins. In InstaJudge this is the Pick the Winner mode, which is what the CERN meeting used.