1. Prior to a conference, delegates are invited to register for a “Meetings of the Mind” or a “Speed networking with a twist” event. The maximum number of participants is N*2, where N is the maximum number of meeting spaces that can be accommodated.

2. Each delegate is asked to complete a questionnaire which lists areas of professional and/or intellectual interest. Approximately 30 choices are available from 100 areas of potential interest, based on key words, topics, pursuits, etc. Number of choices and areas of interest can have higher or lower maximums.

3. The questionnaire is answered as a web survey in a special web based program that ASDE creates.

4. The data from the questionnaires completed by all registrants is collected and fed into a scheduling program which matches the registrants based on the number of topics in common and the level of interest in each topic.

5. The program matches areas of interest between registrants with the constraint of a maximum of T, where T is the number of time slots at predetermined meeting intervals.

6. The matching algorithm takes charge of maximizing the number of shared interest areas between registrants.

Any delegate who decides not to attend can be removed from the schedule and a new schedule generated up to 48 hours before the meeting.

Registrants are strongly encouraged to commit to participating as any cancellations after that time will result in a cancelled match, and therefore a non-paired participant.