Create Your Reality | Technica
Addressing design and user experience/interface needs for 100+ organizers and 800+ participants
ROLE
Design Co-Director
DURATION
Dec 2022 - Oct 2023
TEAM
Roshida Herelle
Rae Wu
Gabrielle Hester
Caitlin Yan
Anning Cui
Rachael Ingobo
Elaine Gao
Emilie Miranda
Dinelka Jagoda
Baheera Mariska
Overview
What is Technica?
Technica is the world's largest hackathon for underrepresented genders in tech. The hackathon is hosted annually at the University of Maryland, and is a weekend jam-packed with swag, workshops, networking, and awesome projects!
Women and nonbinary people continue to hold a disproportionately low share of jobs in tech while also facing gender discrimination in the workforce. How might we create a space for underrepresented genders in tech to feel heard?
With a focus on inclusivity and creating a space for people to thrive, Technica aims to bridge the gender disparity in tech by offering a way for students around the world to connect and learn from one another.
Leading the 2023 design team
My role was to be Design Co-Director for the 2023 season alongside Rae Wu. Rae and I managed a team of 8 designers from varying backgrounds who contributed greatly to our theme: Create Your Reality!
The talented design team behind Create Your Reality!
Each week, Rae and myself led design team meetings to check in with our team. This was where we delegated tasks, planned bonding, and checked out how our team was doing throughout the season!
Our meeting agendas typically consisted of catching up/ice breakers, updates, feedback and task choosing!
At the halfway mark, Rae and I decided to do a retrospective to see how our team was feeling about the season so far. This helped us shift our priorities and focus more on creating a fun space rather than hyper focusing on tasks. Their feedback was crucial to creating a team where everyone was thriving!
We were able to pinpoint opportunities for growth for our team with a retrospective.
Alongside meetings and task delegation, Rae and I collaborated with co-execs and directors from brand, community, diversity and inclusion, experience, outreach, sponsorship, and technology, developed project roadmaps, and oversaw the front-end designs for the 2023 themed site.
Cultivating our theme
How did we build Create Your Reality?
Every week, we had general body meetings (GBMs) with the different departments within the organizing team. We used them to discuss project roadmaps, sync on collaboration efforts, and build some community amongst the teams.
Since finalizing the theme is one of the priorities for Spring semester, the design team created theme presentations to present at the 2nd GBM. These themes were brainstormed in a directors meeting weeks prior.
Below are some of the themes our team generated! Our top contenders were a paradise, under the sea theme, fantasy, and video game theme!
Our theme presentations.
After presenting our themes in the GBM, we created a voting system in Slack for other organizers to choose their desired theme. We also opened up a theme slack channel to host any other ideas that organizers may have.
Creating themed assets
Collaborating with community, D&I, experience, and tech meant that our team was working on a range of designs that covered events, character designs, and the website! We constantly sought feedback in Slack channels and design meetings so that we could iterate and refine.
Pre- and post recruitment contributions
What did I work on during my time as Design Co-Director?
Prior to composing our team, Rae and I were the sole designers from December 2022-March 2023. Below are some of the graphics I worked on during that period!
Created the Meet the Directors Template to introduce the new 2023 directors!
Designed the following social media posts
Created key website components such as keynote speaker holders, testimony cards, event statistics, and site illustrations.
While my amazing design team handled a lot of the social media, theme development and character design tasks, I worked on the following designs:
Developing fliers that would be used for outreach, growing our Techni-Fam, and weekend-of!
Results
After a year of work, what were our results?
Our 2023 stats!
hackers
800+
projects
120+
sponsors
29
Technica 2023 was a success and it wouldn’t have been made possible without the contribution of each and every organizer and director. Being apart of an organization with a mission of helping create a space for others to thrive was inspiring and it truly shaped my time at the University of Maryland.
Takeaways
Stepping into a leadership role can be tough but inspiring!
This was the first time I took on a role of leading a group of designers to handle such a large scale event. My co and I regarded our design team as if they were like our children, and it made our connection with the team that much stronger. We loved bonding with them throughout the season and seeing them grow their skillsets. It’s a feeling I won’t forget!
Now, there were certainly things I could have done better as design co-director, such as having stronger communication across teams, encouraging more collaboration during theme development and incorporating more fun activities to keep morale during the summer grind. I was far from perfect but that was okay because it meant that I still had the capability to reflect and grow into a stronger leader!
Regardless, the experience taught me the importance of stepping back, listening to others, and creating an environment where people feel comfortable to come to you about anything. I've taken away a lot from this experience and I will carry it with me well into my design career.
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