Behind the Scenes of OWN IT 2021: Rise Together
Hot air balloons are a sort of graceful magic. Cloth furling out with the touch of heated air and rising steadily into the air. Hot air balloons were the inspiring motif at the forefront of DWIB’s OWN IT 2021 Conference. This year’s theme was “Rise Together”, selected with the hope that attendees would be able to fuel their own careers, confidence and drive with the experience of attending. However, before a hot air balloon makes it’s successful journey into the wide open sky, there are a lot of steps that need to be taken behind the scenes.
In the case of OWN IT, the pandemic was the equivalent of stormy weather that threatened the experience of the hot air balloon ride. The coronavirus had once again become an obstruction to the growth and human connection that makes conferences like these so special. Past attendees cited the in-person OWN IT conference as their favorite DWIB event of the year because not only was it a chance to make valuable networking connections and gain invaluable experience from speakers but they could do all of that with their friends and make memories together in-person.
Planning for OWN IT typically starts in June during the summer prior to the conference. Initially the directors had thought they would be able to hold a hybrid conference. However as care numbers rose and vaccines were slowly trickling down the pipeline, the directors had to reshape the conference to be entirely online. As OWN IT Internal Affairs Director Himani Lothia said, “At first, it was definitely difficult to accept, especially because OWN IT is traditionally in person and on campus. However, we knew that making the conference fully online would be the best option for everyone's safety and comfort.”
The virtual setting came with its own challenges that the directors then had to mitigate. After a lengthy year of Zoom classes, meetings and socialization, the vast majority of us are more than sick of interacting through a screen. All directors cited “Zoom fatigue” and attendee engagement as their primary concerns while figuring out how they were going to put on this year's OWN IT. Per Himani some of the key solutions that were implemented into the flow of this year's conference were: “making our traditionally 1 day conference into 2 separate days [and] add[ing] networking [sessions] on both days, allowing for more opportunity for attendee/speaker interaction.”
A big piece of the puzzle was deciding on Whova as the host platform for the conference and making sure that both attendees and speakers knew how to interact through the platform. OWN IT Speaker Board Associate Sarah Vawter said her most unexpected challenge during the planning process was working to make sure that the speakers could easily use the digital platform and give their speeches without facing technical issues.
However, despite the challenges imposed by the virtual format of the concert, there were also new opportunities. The conference being virtual allowed for the director board to expand their geographic radius of speakers from the Davis and Bay Area to anywhere in the world.
Moreover, it was an incredible opportunity to grow for the board of directors who breathed life into the conference and took it upon themselves to rise together. OWN IT Sponsorship team member Rossdaly Prado said “I did not [initially] realize how much planning and thought was put into organizing a conference.” However, with the guidance of the board directors Allyson Wu and Himani Lothia, the conference was an absolute success with 46 speakers and around 150 attendees. Despite the challenges that COVID provided, the conference went extremely well. This author particularly enjoyed listening to the incredibly diverse and passionate speakers and found a lot of inspiration for her future endeavors in their words. Rise Together couldn’t have been a more apt theme for this amazing event!