Welcome to Inuyama Nerds #6: "Nerdemic! Virality, zombies and other tales from the end of the world." In this rendition of our popular event, organizers Sanjana Kadam and Kenneth Keuk tackle the great existential crisis of our time: zombification!
For the first time in our history, ths Inuyama Nerds is being held completely online, in true nerdly fashion, in response to our global COVID-19 pandemic that is happening in real life, and which is perhaps just a smidge more important than the risk of zombies.
Using the Mozilla Hubs platform, we were able to gather in a fully customized 3D virtual environment, complete with spatial chat to facilitate a mixture of group and private chat. In all, it was a great event that included two fun and informative SciComm talks by our two organizers, themed music between activities, and a series of games such as an event-long behind-the-scenes epidemic, a Wikipedia Race and Pictionary!
All in all, aside from the inevitable few technical glitches along the way, this was a brilliant proof-of-concept event for us at CICASP that adds to our arsenal of options for content delivery. The credit goes to Sanjana and Kenneth for throwing such an innovative and lively event. We remain in awe of the capacity for ingenuity and resilience in the face of challenges displayed by our graduate group.
Image credit: Srishti Tripathi and Kenneth Keuk