By Denman Wall, Brian Schafer, and William Beck

When COVID-19 shuttered offices, schools, and most everything else this past spring, many people were left wondering how the show would go on. How would society adapt to something that was unknown to so many of us?

The shutdown’s greatest impact was the cancelation of large in-person events – concerts, conferences, sporting events, etc. While it took some time to adjust, it did not keep innovative thinking from taking center stage. In fact, one could argue that despite the hardship, this collective experience ushered in a rebirth of virtual collaboration.

In April 2020, I was delighted to witness a successful transformation of a live, STEM competition into a virtual program. The University Challenge, sponsored annually by the 7×24 Exchange Metro NY Chapter, provides an opportunity for schools in the Northeast to compete for valuable scholarship awards. The event typically draws together engineering students, professors, and mentor teams to build and present technical solutions that could be used in actual data center environments. Consisting of both hardware and software components, the teams present their final designs to judges and then await feedback. After a winner is determined, a networking event rounds out the evening.

Faced with a tough decision as their competition’s date approached – cancel the challenge or move it online – the chapter forged ahead. It would not be a light decision given the number of stakeholders involved. Would their members buy into it during the height of the pandemic? Would the schools be able to participate? Would sponsors support it financially?

After working with their academic counterparts and sponsoring partners, it was official. With participating teams from Binghamton University, Manhattan College, and Rutgers University, the competition would go on!

According to Brian Schafer, President of the Metro New York Chapter of 7×24 Exchange and Principal of Highland Associates, “Once we committed to the event, our leadership consisting of Bill Beck and Heather Bacci put the wheels in motion to find the means to run the program remotely and leaned on our event sponsors VIE Technologies and Quality Uptime Services to run with WebEx as the format. We immediately began to trial run the event on WebEx to work out all the details and procedures for registering and displaying the presentations.”

Holding the event online had some logistical challenges. The event needed to coordinate the three universities with event hosting from 20 different locations. It was being hosted without having any history of a technical platform able to support such an endeavor. Given the unique circumstances, the chapter had the universities prepare and record their presentations to be broadcast then hosted live with a real-time Q&A period following each presentation. This model eliminated the dependence on the hosting service to ensure latency and connectivity.

Furthermore, the universities were required to finish their projects remotely and create the team presentations in the same manner, all while having to complete their course of studies remotely for the first time in their university experience. The 7×24 Metro NY board provided independent advisors, Michael Carron, Don Bachman, and Rob Ioanna, plus additional guidance to the universities. The students rehearsed and fine-tuned their presentations over several weeks. The key was to provide the right amount of detail and content to engage the audience, while keeping in mind that they were all competing under the same conditions.

As the event unfolded, each team described their concept, illustrated their applications, and shared their processes. Just as exciting was the level of diversity that each team brought to their projects. In total, 65% of the participants were female and one team was all women. However, the diversity did not stop at gender composition – it extended to field of study disciplines, as well. Each team engaged software engineering students, mechanical engineering students, and mathematics students to complete their projects.

The event peaked at over 170 participants and everyone was extremely pleased at the overall results. The chapter received an abundance of positive feedback and subsequently reposted the presentations on the website for membership viewing.

William Beck, 7×24 Exchange Metro NY Chapter board member and co-emcee for the University Challenge, stated “Mission accomplished! We at 7×24 Metro NY Chapter were incredibly pleased with the results and feedback received from our membership, sponsors, and the universities.”

“As a result, we plan on conducting this type of format and engagement with our members in the future. This, of course, in balance with our live event engagements that our membership has enjoyed in the past and we will also continue as the environment permits.”

“We would like to thank our universities, our host for the event – VIE Technologies, Quality Uptime Services, our Annual Sponsors and our members who attended and continue to support the ongoing efforts of the 7×24 Exchange Metro NY Chapter.”

Rather than award one team prize money, as was done in previous years, each school received $5,000 awards to their scholarship fund while the participating students received a gift of $250. Additionally, each of the universities are planning to form 7×24 Exchange school chapters.

The overall result serves as a reminder of how endeavoring, like-minded entities can overcome real-life challenges while putting their collective trust into innovation and modern technology.

Denman Wall is Sr. Director, Interactive Services at 7×24 Exchange. Brian Schafer is President of the Metro New York Chapter of 7×24 Exchange and Principal of Highland Associates. He can be reached at [email protected]. William Beck is a Board Member of the Metro New York Chapter of 7×24 Exchange and Content/Education Committee Chair and EVP Strategy of Chirisa Inv, and Senior Advisor and Board member for multiple Infrastructure and Development Technology companies. He can be reached at [email protected].