LinkedIn launches first product built out of the Bengaluru R&D Centre 'LinkedIn Events'

LinkedIn announced the global launch of ‘LinkedIn Events’ that enables members to create, share, and discover professional events. With Events, the platform aims to foster offline community building, and help members nurture deeper and high-quality professional relationships. According to LinkedIn data, the chances of people accepting connection requests on LinkedIn increases 2X if they have attended a face-to-face meeting.

With LinkedIn Events every member can seamlessly create and join professional events. They can have conversations with other attendees on the platform and stay in touch online after the event ends. As a members-first platform, LinkedIn Events also allows members to create ‘Private Events’, which enables members to have safe conversations in a closed-door, trusted environment. Additionally, invite filters allow members to tap into their professional network and find members based on location, company, industry, and school to curate their guest list.

Announcing the launch of LinkedIn Events, Ajay Datta, Head of Product, India at LinkedIn said, “At LinkedIn, our core focus is to help our members connect and build lasting professional relationships. Face-to-face interactions are key to realising this vision and bringing online communities to life. With this launch, our members now have a safe and trusted avenue to engage with their network online and offline. We see them using this product to host networking meet-ups, workshops, alumni meets, product launches, and other face-to-face gatherings.”

LinkedIn Events is the first product built out of the Bengaluru R&D Centre for a global audience. The Bengaluru R&D Centre has also conceptualised and built LinkedIn Lite Android app in 2017, which has scaled to 70+ emerging markets across the world and supports 21+ languages. The app has crossed 10 million downloads on Google Playstore this October.

“After the launch of LinkedIn Lite, I am excited to roll out our first ‘made in India, for the world’ product out of LinkedIn’s Bengaluru R&D Centre. With Events, we are now taking on a larger mandate of building products to foster offline communities and help our members connect offline. This launch showcases LinkedIn’s commitment to the Bengaluru R&D Centre and in the team’s talent in building world-class products,” added Ajay Datta.

Apart from Events, the team is developing and testing other avenues to connect members using QR codes, business cards, and proximity-based beacons using Bluetooth.