Wednesday, September 25th
Sottile Theatre
On Wednesday, September 25th I attended the In!Genius event held at CofC’s Sottile Theatre. The event was advertised as “a night of free thinkers and free stuff.” In one hour, seven individuals presented something that made them unique and they wanted to share with the community. All the presenters were in some way associated with CofC whether they were students, faculty, staff or alumni.
The event was based on a simple idea of giving presenters a short amount of time to share their story and message with the audience. It was a similar set-up to TED talks as the presenter was standing alone on stage alone, sometimes with a PowerPoint on behind them, but they all were well prepared and did not use notes to speak. One student who is a computer science major shared his success creating mobile apps that have been recognized by several magazines. Another student shared her experience travelling in Asia where she applied her Hindi studies to empower impoverished women. My favorite presentation was from the director of the women and gender studies program who shared her experience raising her daughter with Down syndrome. Each presentation was entertaining because it was unique and so different from the next one. The presenters clearly shared their points and shared some overall lesson they learned for the audience to take away from it. Most presenters kept to the time limit, but it was obvious when they exceeded it.
During the event I began thinking about our class discussion about SWOT analyses. One of the event’s strengths was its ability to connect people and audiences whose paths may have never crossed. The collaboration between offices and departments was very apparent and offered a unified image of the CofC community something that is necessary when appealing to an outside audience like potential donors or perspective students.
I really enjoyed the event because the presenters made clear and concise points with some final thought or lesson to take away from it. I hope to attend the next one and highly recommend this event to others!