Due to the lockdown, everyone has been affected. Many people have lost jobs and don’t have access to even basic amenities. Social distancing is also taking a toll on all of us (Learning Objective (LO) 6). Recognizing all of this, the DP Economics class came together with the idea of a “Zoomathon” (supervised by Mr. Rossberg, the economics teacher). The Zoomathon is a live broadcast made using Zoom and hosted on various platforms (such as YouTube and Facebook). The aim was twofold: to raise awareness and fundraise for the local Sri Lankan community affected by the pandemic, and to bring the OSC community closer to the various events in our Zoomathon (LO 3).
The DP Economics class along with Mr. Rossberg, Dr. Kleiss, Ms. McQuillan, and Anuda discussing the various aspects of the Zoomathon.
To organize an event of such scale, a collaboration between everyone involved was crucial, and responsibilities had to be delegated (LO 5). This was important as former students, alumni, and teachers who used to teach at OSC were all contacted (but were in different time zones). I was in charge (along with my fellow peers) of templating emails for everyone to send (LO 2), making videos that were shown on the broadcast, and organizing (e.g. contacting people before their events).
The Silent Auction; one of the events of the Zoomathon. People could auction for various activities such as dinner with the famous cricketer Sangakara, or a stay at the offered hotels.
Mr. McHale, who gratuitously agreed to shave his head on the live stream.
The broadcast itself was more or less smooth-sailing. However, there were a few issues with our website. For example, certain donations weren’t going through due to people using international cards, however, our progress bar (showing how much we fundraiser) still updated. Some people also used this glitch to play pranks, donating absurd amounts such as 100000000000 LKR, knowing the donation won’t go through but the change will be evident on the progress bar. I manually reset the donations that didn’t go through, and the hosts requested people to refrain from doing that (LO 4).
The progress bar showing the amount raised.
At the end of the day, the OSC Zoomathon was successful. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t have been possible without the collective effort of everyone involved. Firstly, I’d like to thank the entire DP Economics class who were crucial for this event. I’d like to especially thank Mr. Rossberg, who took on the important role of supervisor. I’d also like to thank Anuda and Divyanshu, who took time out to help with the technical side despite being alumni. In addition to this, I’d like to thank the entire OSC community who came together to watch the Zoomathon and helped us exceed our goal of 500,000 LKR (we raised 735,000 LKR!).
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