This year’s United Nations Day was held on the 5th of October, the last day of the first quarter of my IB DP journey. UN Day at The Overseas School of Colombo is an annual event devoted to celebrating our cultural diversity whilst reflecting on key challenges that we face as a united, global community. Each year, the Model United Nations Team at OSC play a major role in the organization and execution of UN Day, and this year was no different. As COMUN’s Head of Technology, much of the work I did for COMUN in this first quarter was in preparation for UN Day 2018.

Part 1 – Preparation

The Theme

My involvement with UN Day began at the latter stages of the 2018-2019 academic year, when the COMUN team were tasked with the challenge of identifying a key global challenge that would shape the discussions on UN Day. This would eventually become the theme for the event. Together with Virath De Alwis, the Under-Secretary General of COMUN 2018, I developed the theme Green Technology for a Sustainable Future. This theme focuses on the role of innovation in combating the environmental issues we face in the modern world. I supported this topic because I am a strong believer in technology’s ability to solve the problems we face, and today’s environmental concerns are a huge risk to the entire human population. This theme was ultimately chosen as the others involved in the decision also strongly believed in its importance.

UN Day begins with a flags parade, followed by classroom discussions about the theme led by the MUN team, and finishing off with international cuisine and a big assembly. With the theme finalized, the rest of the MUN group began work on researching and creating the required resources for the classroom discussions. The secondary school would be divided into three groups based on grade level, and each of these groups would be discussing a topic within the larger theme of Green Technology. The three groups were Grades 6 and 7; Grades 8,9 and 10;  and Grades 11 and 12; and Green Energy, Green Agriculture, and Green Transportation, were the chosen topics for each group respectively.

Videos

As Head of Tech, the first of my duties was the synthesis of the videos that would be presented on the day. This year I decided to create four distinct videos, three introducing the mini topic to be presented at the start of each classroom session, and an overarching theme video highlighting the idea of Green Technology for a Sustainable Future for the assembly at the end of the day. Although creating 4 high quality videos in a few weeks might seem time consuming, unlike last year, since I have 3 people under me in the COMUN tech team, the workload was more manageable. I delegated the creation of the three videos that introduced the mini topics for the classroom sessions to Milo, and did the editing for the theme video by myself.

I gave Milo the creative guidance he required to make his videos short, informative and purposeful. I provided him with a description of the structure of the video, and he executed it perfectly. For the theme video that I edited, I focused on maximizing the impact it would have on the audience. To achieve this purpose, I chose a dramatic sound track coupled with cinematic visuals. I also chose to include excerpts from various speeches, presentations and interviews, in order to create a narrative that would persuade the audience to innovate with Green Technology for a more sustainable future. I put in a lot of work towards this video, and the final product was highly successful including a range of positive feedback. You can watch the video below.

 

Classroom Discussion Resource Design

The classroom sessions led by the MUN team usually include some digital resources such as Powerpoint slides, videos, Kahoot quizzes, etc. The groups designing the discussions do the research and create these resources. As head of tech, I have to make sure that all of these resources look great and also work correctly on everyone’s machines. Therefore, I transfer all of this content into a universal, clean and minimal format, whilst ironing out any creases in the content in order to ensure that all resources look professional and work as intended. This year, I chose a design language that revolved around Green, since the theme was about Green Technology. After creating a template and design for the resources, I began transferring content together with Divyanshu and Youzhi.  Click here to see an example of a finished piece of work.

Schedule Design

UN Day runs on a different schedule than usual since it is a special event in the OSC calendar. Therefore, the schedule for the day is an important organizational resource that is referred by many key stakeholders across the school. Since the schedule is such an important resource, I put all of the different schedules for primary and secondary into a clean and uniform format to make the resource more inviting and accessible. Click here to see one of the schedules I designed.

Digital Content for the Assembly

The final aspect of preparation ahead of UN Day, was putting all of the digital content required for the assembly together. The assembly was showcasing a variety of digital content from videos from the 10th Grade INS students, to slides from the guest speaker. In order to ensure that the assembly moves smoothly without any technical hiccups, I obtained all of these resources and put it all into one single powerpoint, which is the only resource used at the auditorium on the day. I also created a backdrop that would be on screen throughout the assembly, when other digital content was not being presented. Once again, I chose a green color scheme for the backdrop, but made the design stand out more compared to the design for the classroom sessions. Once the powerpoint was ready, all the videos, slides, audio and other resources were tested at the auditorium multiple times.

Part 2 – Execution

Classroom Discussions

Usually, I would not have been required to lead a classroom discussion since I am tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the technological resources are working properly in each of the classrooms. However, this year we were lacking a few presenters, meaning that I had to be presenting in a classroom. I was allocated to present to Grades 8,9 and 10 about Green Technology in the Agriculture Industry with Virath. Since Virath was quite a capable leader himself, he handled the initial stages of the discussion while I checked on the other classroom’s technology. Most of the leaders were up and running, but I had to help out with a few by teaching them how to connect to the projectors. I also checked the sound in each of the different classrooms in order to avoid any hiccups when presenting the videos.

After returning to my classroom, I found out that Virath was facing a tech issue himself. The projector in the classroom we were assigned was not connected to the network, taking a wireless connection out of the picture, and the HDMI cable that was compatible with our computers(…dongles) was not hooked up to the projector. As a result until the tech support staff setup a new cable, we had to present using my laptop screen as the main presentation screen. Nevertheless, the discussion went smoothly and I enjoyed talking about a subject that I was quite passionate and knowledgeable about.

The Assembly

After the classroom session, while everyone else was enjoying international cuisine at the Cafeteria, I headed to the auditorium to prepare for the assembly. I had to make a quick addition to the powerpoint, since the chief guest had also provided a video for presentation after her speech. After quickly adding that in, I tested out the presentation and the slide changing remote that would be used during Mr. Lockwood’s keynote address. Unfortunately, the range of the remote was too small to communicate all the way from the stage to the balcony in the auditorium. Since there was no time to look for replacements, I had to change the slides myself.

After that it was time to start the assembly, sitting in the balcony, managing lighting, sound and the digital resources, together with Lakshitha, is probably one of the most stressful, yet enjoyable aspects of my duties as Head of Tech. It is stressful knowing that hundreds of people are noticing the slightest hiccups, yet extremely enjoyable and satisfying when everything goes smoothly. Fortunately, thanks to all of the testing done prior to the assembly, everything went smoothly without any hiccups.

Preparing and executing UN Day was a lot of work. However, at the end of the day, I enjoyed it all and learnt a lot in the process. I improved my video editing and graphic design skills, and even improved my time management and leadership skills in the process. Overall, UN Day 2018 was a successful event and a great experience. However, this year is the 25th session of COMUN, and this is only the beginning to the most glamorous COMUN calendar than ever before with more work than ever before as well.