A virtual conferencing system comprising: a plurality of clients operated by participants and at least one moderator of a virtual conference, each of the clients comprising state management logic configured to maintain a current state of the virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and/or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including: a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface, GUI , to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference utilizing the established video connections; and a decision support module to evaluate the participants according to one or more criteria in the virtual conference and to select a subset of the participants as candidates to actively participate in the virtual conference based on the evaluation; a contribution identification module to identify events related to actions of participants during the virtual conference; an event log to store the events identified by the contribution identification module; and an event filter to provide options for searching for specific types of events within the event log based on input from the moderator and/or participants when reviewing a recording of the virtual conference, the event filter to generate a filtered set of events based on the input from the moderator and/or participants. a plurality of clients operated by participants and at least one moderator of a virtual conference, each of the clients comprising state management logic configured to maintain a current state of the virtual conference; a virtual conferencing service to establish audio and/or video connections between the plurality of clients during the virtual conference, the virtual conferencing service further including: a state synchronization service communicatively coupled to the state management logic on each client to ensure that the current state of the virtual conference is consistent on each client; a virtual conferencing graphical user interface, GUI , to be rendered on the plurality of clients, the virtual conferencing GUI configured, via signals sent from the state synchronization service, to display a video stream of one or more current speakers during the virtual conference utilizing the established video connections; and a decision support module to evaluate the participants according to one or more criteria in the virtual conference and to select a subset of the participants as candidates to actively participate in the virtual conference based on the evaluation; a contribution identification module to identify events related to actions of participants during the virtual conference; an event log to store the events identified by the contribution identification module; and an event filter to provide options for searching for specific types of events within the event log based on input from the moderator and/or participants when reviewing a recording of the virtual conference, the event filter to generate a filtered set of events based on the input from the moderator and/or participants. <EOS>