NSCA Pivot to Profit attendees will have the chance to show off their coding skills—all in the name of helping Dallas-area kids—before kicking off the 2019 Pivot to Profit event later this month. [related]
Thanks to an industry team-building event before Pivot to Profit—slated for Sept. 24 and 25 at the Sheraton DFW in Irving, Texas, attendees will code eight Ozobot Evos and give them to students from the Dallas Boys & Girls Club at the dinner reception the following night.
NSCA started adding team-building activities to their events before Pivot to Profit last year in Atlanta with a bike-building initiative. The association added a team-building component to the Business & Leadership Conference in Tampa, Fla., in February by building sports equipment packs.
This time around, it’s robot coding, an effort that clearly has more of a direct link to some of the skills of Pivot to Profit attendees.
“We wanted to have an opportunity for the attendees to get together before the event and do something fun and a little different,” says NSCA events manager Savannah Washburn.
Inside the Ozobot Coding Party
Ozobots are interactive robots that user code using colors that can trigger the toy to move at different speeds and in different directions. They’re based on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills, which are all key components of a career in AV.
“It’s a way for this event to have a greater, deeper mission for some of the attendees,” says Casey Curry, corporate citizenship director for alliantgroup, who is sponsoring the team-building activity. “It helps everyone to see the extended mission.”
Many P2P attendees have already signed up for the team-building event, but Washburn welcomes more of them to reach out to her in the hopes of getting a similar turnout of about 50 to 60 people who came to build bikes last year. The event is scheduled for 6 to 8:30 p.m. in one of the conference’s rooms.
NSCA Education Foundation program director Kelly Perkins is excited about the event, saying it’s a nice tie-in to the work of the association’s Ignite workforce development program.
“It’s a great event to get these kids excited about technology and programming,” she says.
