My experience of organizing an online UI/UX designathon as a 3rd-year undergraduate
I have been working under many leadership roles with a diverse team in my two years as a member of the AIESEC establishment in Sri Lanka in the university of Sri Lanka Institute of Information technology (SLIIT). But, leading a team to make a long-time idea a reality is different. The idea of the event ‘benchmark’, started in the year 2021, a year known for its challenging, catastrophic and fatigued nature due to covid waves, continued lockdowns and restrictions that affected people all around the world.
In this blog, I would like to share my first experience as the organizing committee president in organizing an online event in the midst of the new normal.
What is benchmark 2021 and how it went :
benchmark 2021 is an UI/UX bootcamp and designathon which focuses on providing a high-level overview of UI/UX designing, platforms used, essential tools and best practices. The event consisted of a series of webinars and workshops topped off by a designathon, which will bring out the creativity hidden inside our participants. The event facilitated more than 400 undergraduates of Sri Lanka to build the fundamental skills required to start a career in the UI/UX field. With many professional personalities taking the young audience through their journey in the field, they made the event much more meaningful to all the participants.
The bootcamp was a three-day-long event with 4 different experts conducting sessions namely, Ms Fadila Nuza, senior UI/UX engineer, Mr. Gobinthiran Kulendran, Founder and CEO of HUEX Pvt. ltd Srilanka, Mr. Jude Sajith, an award-winning researcher and founder of Eureka Innovations and Mr. Akalanka Perera, Full-stack developer. The session’s topics were ‘Design Thinking’, ‘Side hustles and you: on how to land on freelancing and starting a business, ‘Developing hint triggering designs and habit forming products’ and ‘Getting started with Figma’ conducted by mentors in the respective order mentioned above. All the above-mentioned sessions were 45-minutes long with more than 100 active participants. The bootcamp which started on the 27th of November 2021 successfully concluded on 29th of November 2021 achieving its objectives.
The designathon which followed next consisted of two rounds, namely the initial and final round addressing challenging topics, which the 43 teams of participants from different universities of Sri Lanka worked on. The initial round challenge was to make a self-learning mobile application that facilitates the user to make in-app purchases of goods and services. An awareness session was conducted by one of the honorary judges, Ms. Michela to help the participants get started with the challenge. The final round was an intense 48-hour challenge to make a mobile application for a self-driving car with 12 finalist teams competing to victory. The designathon concluded with TOP 3 teams becoming victors, taking home amazing cash prizes and certificates awarded for their excellent performances.
The honorary judging panel of the designathon consisted of professional personalities who are, Ms. Michela Thalagala, associate technical lead — UX, Ms. Fadila Nuza, senior UI/UX engineer, Mr. Kaneel Dias, software engineer and the vice president of finance, legal, and information management of AIESEC in Sri Lanka and Mr. Jude Sajith, an award-winning researcher and founder of Eureka Innovations.
The designathon final round also consisted of a Social Media Contest with the 12 finalist teams competing for the title of the ‘Most Popular Team’, decided by the most facebook liked poster of the team. The contest was held from the 27th to the 30th of December 2021.
The designathon which started on the 1st of December 2021, concluded successfully on the 8th of January 2022 with results announcements.
How it all started :
The idea and the concept of the event is a new attempt to AIESEC in SLIIT, Sri Lanka. But it was a long time idea for me to have a technology-based event conducted by the entity. Hence, it required very detailed event planning, from determining the target audience to successfully getting their active participation in the event. As this is a fully virtual event initiating with zero budget, I had to expect many challenges such as marketing quality content that attract guests and audiences, getting sponsors and partners in the middle of an economical crisis due to covid and working in a remote condition.
I started off by putting together a team of ten talented individuals assigned with different organizational responsibilities with the help of the project manager, Mr. Navindu. The team had Lakmal and Thevindu working on the marketing of the event, Oshadhi and Vishmi working on delegate management, Sayuni and Vishara working on external relations of the event, and Birhavi, Hashane and Shabnam working on the Event and Public relation management as the organizing committee vice presidents.
Over the course of the next five months, it took many team-building activities, hours of workspaces and daily calls and meetings to put together a successful event.
“I believe that to get the full potential of an individual out of them, they should be given the responsibility for the tasks and control of the process of their work”.
Hence, I encouraged my team to work on their ideas and perspectives to get a better understanding of the event and the duties and responsibilities surrounding it. This strategy led to better team management, a healthy workforce of shared responsibilities, time management, little to no conflicts among members and better results and achievements during the event. With trackers and reminders set to manage their performances, it was much easier for me to navigate through the events schedules while multitasking as an undergraduate student working in internships.
What we achieved through the event :
We were able to reach out to more than 400 undergraduates, got many professional personalities to grace the event, created a website designated to the event, customized Facebook and LinkedIn accounts for the event which made the event trend on all platforms and
had successful and mutually beneficial partnerships with software and technology companies in Sri Lanka.
The companies also provided the participant internship opportunities. Notably, the event was also known for its best promotional materials such as posters and delegate tags that made an online buzz among the participants and non-participants. We were also able to release an exclusive ‘resource pack’ which included study materials provided by the influential mentors of the bootcamp series.
I have to admit that achieving the success of the event was definitely not smooth. We stumbled upon many obstacles and challenges to which I am glad of being exposed to. There were exhausting days filled with demotivation and stress. Not to mention that it tested my leadership skills and values, and taught me different strategies of implementation, the importance of teamwork and how to reach a common ground in diverse perspectives and opinions to get the best result. This made me realize my capacity and maximize my potential.
“The organizational outcome highly depends on the effectiveness and the productivity of the team which handles every step of the process in given circumstances”.
Thanks to the organizing committee members for being the strength and support for me. I highly appreciate their time, dedication and hard work making this event a benchmark of success. I would like to thank Mr. Navindu for his continued support, motivation and dedication in making this event successful. I would also like to thank my fellow senior AIESECers, notably, Mr. Nishith, Mr. Dulanda, Mr. Vihan, Mr. Malik, Mr. Nilan, Ms. Divya, and Ms. Mithuni.
I was extremely lucky to be able to work with such a motivated team and supportive individuals. I believe that together we were able to empower the young minds of Sri Lanka. This experience is beyond just our duties and responsibilities, it created many opportunities, memories and friendships.
Conclusions :
The rapidly growing technologies are highly based on the development of User Experience and User Interfaces to maximize usability. Hence, it is an important subject of focus for future designers and developers to understand the need for user experience and its effect on the user.
We consider our event as an attempt to bring the attention of the youths of Sri Lanka to the subject of UI/UX. With the growing trend of entrepreneurship and start-ups in the country, not many young minds have the opportunity to obtain the right guidance to have a smooth start to their journey of innovation and advancement. Through the event, we were able to reach many of such students and make an impact. It was a responsible job to gather the right resources and experts to make the raw ideas of our delegates into pitch-worthy concepts. We are definitely proud of the achievement and the impact we have made through the event. Certainly, we hope to make this an annual event facilitating much more opportunities for the participants.
official website of benchmark: www.aiesec.lk/benchmark
Designs: https://www.behance.net/gallery/138985935/benchmark-Designathon