Wednesday, February 29, 2012

StuCon2012

My friend Dave Navis from the international school in Guangzhou had an idea for a few years about a student-led tech conference. This year, I joined ranks with him, Justin Hardman (my tech director) and Pat McMahon (tech guy in Shanghai) to make Dave's dream a reality. On March 16-17, HKIS is hosting StuCon2012, a 24-hour nonstop tech-a-thon for HS kids in Asia. So far, we have about 60 kids signed up, with an expectation of about 20--30 more. It should be interesting; I've never hosted a conference before, and it's a little scary thinking about 80 teenagers running around all night doing tech, or worse yet...NOT doing tech. There's a lot of responsibility on the coaches to ensure that their teams have good presentations, and Dave, Pat and I are communicating a lot with them giving support and encouragement. I have three groups from HKIS going, so I also have some coaches to guide. I've already created several websites and google.docs,  and Justin has overseen the preparation of lots of brochures, etc. This week I am working on logistics; arranging classrooms, food, transportation, staff, materials and getting ready to make a planning schedule. Stay tuned to see how it plays out. :-)

Tuesday, February 28, 2012