In 2018, 1:1 Connect founder Doug Roberts launched the Institute for Education Innovation (IEI) to create a safe and productive environment for school system leaders and educational technology providers to build innovative solutions to the industry’s most pressing issues. Every year IEI hosts national and regional summits that offer our members and partners high-quality, peer-to-peer learning opportunities that advance professional and personal practice.

District and organizational leaders have no time to give or receive pitches for ill-fitting solutions that aren’t aligned to priorities. So, to ensure summits yielded impact and outcomes, the IEI events team would spend hours upon hours hunched over spreadsheets, surveys, banquet hall layouts, and conference room maps, manually matching educational leaders with solutions providers whose missions and values  complement each other.

This service was a welcome shift from the typical conference exhibit hall experience, and it proved more valuable than other hosted buyer events that relied on mass-networking gatherings and panels. But it was unsustainable as IEI grew.

The team went in search of a tool to help automate our processes and ensure high-quality buyer–vendor pairings, and to their surprise, none met their needs. None even came close. So Doug tapped into IEI’s network of brilliant, innovative tech founders and developers and built their own matchmaking algorithm and platform. 

Over a series of summits, and with great input from IEI’s members and partners, Doug and the team perfected the 1:1 Connect tool. As a result, partner and member renewal rates skyrocketed because IEI provided clear value to every attendee.