Ahha Dalmia
TECHNEWS WRITER

The Interprofessional Projects
Program (IPRO) Day event took place on
Friday November 20, 2015‘ IPRO Day is
a day at the end of semester where IPRO
teams comprising of students from all majors
exhibit projects that they have been working
on throughout the semester The IPRO is an
IIT general education requirement that most
undergraduate student have to take twice in
their academic career An average IPRO team
consists of 5715 students from any academic
discipline

An IPRO project not only allows
students to apply their knowledge towards
tackling a realeworld problem, but it also
allows the sharing of knowledge across various
academic disciplines to come up with more
innovative solutions

This year’s IPRO day saw a huge
number of projects, at least 45, only some
of which will be covered in this article One
project suggested that cars use zinc batteries
instead of petrol as they cause less pollution
and are recyclablel In addition, zinc used
to power cars can be stored in batteries,
allowing people to avoid the problem of
looking for petrol stations to refuel their car
so often Another project called Custom Meal
attempted to make the process of weight loss
easy by offering to deliver fresh and calorie,
conscious meals to the doorstep of consumers
at competitive prices

Doorbusters was another interesting
project that attempted to solve the problem of
truck accidents due to bad weather by allowing

 

Student newspaper of Illinois Institute of Technology since 1928

Students showcase projects at Fall Semester IPRO Day

managers of truck companies to tell their
drivers that it was okay to pull over and take
a break Research revealed that 70% of 20000
truck accidents caused by weather occurred
because drivers felt pressured to make
delivery on time despite the adverse weather
conditions The technology the team came up
with would allow managers to not only inform

truck drivers of unsuitable weather, but also
reassure the drivers that it was okay to stop and
deliver a little later

Quite a few projects attempted to
solve social projects too One of them, titled
Malaria Detection, attempted to reduce the
number of deaths caused by malaria in Rwanda

by allowing people to detect it at an early stage
Since they figured that many people in Rwanda
own a smartphone, they created a gadget that
could be attached to a phone and consisted a
microscope to test blood and reveal whether
the person was infected by malarial A group
of students figured that citizens of Sumaoy
(an island in Philippines) could use their

 

Photo by Abha Dalmia

natural resources to become selfesulficient and
drastically improve their quality of life They
held the noble dream of educating the locals
on this island of the various products that
could be created from coconut trees that they
had abundance of

Refuges Unite was another social

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innovation project attempted to create a social
networking platform for the Syrian refugees in
Lebanon The group came up with an idea for
the Syrian refuges to help each other since are
not welcomed in a lot of places The solution
they came up with is an app, through which
refugees can inform each other about landlords
willing to rent out property to them, new laws
being passed, areas to stay away from, and
other important information In order give
refugees a safe platform to communicate freely,
the application would allow only people with a
refugee ID to sign up

On IPRO day, entrepreneurs and
leaders from various corporations, small
businesses, nonprofit organizations, and
associations get to see projects students are
working on They enjoy attending the IPRO
event as it gives them an insight into the
quality of students at IIT These industry
professionals very often sponsor IPRO projects
and encourage the next generation’s creativity
In addition, they help moderate the IPRO
teams and ask some very intelligent questions
that help students further develop their ideas

The IPRO project is definitely one of
IIT’s strengthsl It fosters creativity and allows
the merging and sharing of knowledge from
different disciplines towards creating better
solutions It gives students an opportunity
to work collaboratively towards addressing
complex issues In addition to team work
skills, it also enhances their public speaking
and organization skills Most importantly, it
provides students with a concrete learning
experience worth talking about when in job
interviews

Union Board attends NACA to book campus performers

Reno Waswil
TECHNEWS WRITER

Have you ever wondered where
Union Board (UB) gets their ideas and how
the organization is able to book so many Bog
and Center Court performance artists? Every
year, a number of regional and a national
conferences are organized and attended
by representatives of programming boards
like Union Board under the umbrella name
National Association for Campus Activities
(NACA)l These conferences bring together
school programming boards, performing
artists, professional event programmers, and
various types of service providers to help
widen the scope of events that take place
on campuses around the country as well as
make the booking process easier for everyone
involved

Union Board programmer Reno
Waswil (Hawks Coffeehouse Programmer)
was included in the IIT delegation to the
conference as well as UB executive members
Christopher Alexander (OffCampus Chair
and soonetoebe Hawk’s Nest Chair), Amiarini
Lopez (OneCampus Chair), Melanie Standish
(President), and OCL staff members Alex
Carlson and Elizabeth Thomas for three
full days at NACA Mid America Regional
Conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan at
the DeVos Place Convention Center from
Thursday, October 29 to Sunday, November 1‘

These conferences are split
up into three sections: Educational (Ed)
Sessions, Showcases, and Campus Activities
Marketplaces (CAMP)l Ed Sessions were
presentations spanning about an hour
focusing on pertinent information that

programming board members would benefit
from knowing, such as publicity strategies,
teamebuilding tactics, and things to remember
when planning and carrying out events
Illinois Tech’s Carlson gave a talk at the first
Ed session of the weekend entitled “NACA &
You: From here to Eternity" about how to best
utilize the NACA experience for first timers at
the conference A dozen or so sessions would
be available concurrently during any given
Ed period, offering some variety of topics for
attendees choose from There was a total of six
Ed Session periods through the duration of
the conference

NACA’s centerpiece though, was
its showcases, which were typically two,
hour, onestage affairs where performing
artists~comedia.ns, magicians, poets, solo/
duo acts, and larger bands~would get
around 15 minutes each to perform and sell
themselves to the audience in hopes of getting
a few bookingsl Attendees received booklets
when they checked into the conference with
information on each of the acts they would
be seeing as well as the artist’s single booking
and block booking prices A total of seven acts
performed per Showcase, one of those being
a host (usually either a spoken word poet or
comedian) who would introduce each of the
acts as well as be given some time between
acts to show ofi’ their own talentsl There was a
total of six Showcases, not including one that
exclusively held motivational speakers

CAMP took place almost always
but not exclusively after showcases, where an
hour would be reserved for attendees to go
into a large ballroom filled with rows of tables
to meet some of the artists they had or would
be watching perform and their agents, as

well as talk to a few providers of services and
events that were not represented during the
showcase These included such things as the
rental services for 3D crystal portrait making,
arcade games, balloon animal making, paint
dance parties, and bubble soccer equipment
One of the more memorable tables was one
held by actor Kevin Brown, who is most
famous for playing the character Dot Com
in the hit NBC sitcom “30 Roc " He was
selling his services to put on a show on college
campuses called “One Ioke Wonder" He and
other professional standups would go to
schools ready to perform an hour of comedy,
but the show would more surround students
going up to the mic and telling their jokesl

There was also a running contest
where attendees could compete for the chance
to win a smartwatch by achieving the highest
number of steps recorded on a pedometer
provided to them for the length of each CAMP
sessionl With great determination, Alexander
came very close a few times to winning but
sadly never made it There were a total of six
CAMP sessions

The Showcases were not the only
mediums for attendees to become acquainted
with acts during the conference Each day,
there was also a featured ‘roving artist’ who
would perform in lobby of the conference
center who would also be included in the
booklet for booking

Carlson and Standish took time
out of the busy schedule to attend the block
booking meetings during the conference At
these, they would meet with representatives
of other schools to book the acts they were
interested in bringing to their schools at
reduced prices by booking them in tandem

Some of the performers Illinois Tech booked
during these sessions that readers can look
forward to seeing next semester include
comedians Omid Singh, Iosh Johnson, and
Ben the Magician; A Capella group The
Filharmonics (who made an appearance in
“Perfect Pitch 2"); spoken word poets Asia
Project and Speak Like a Girl; and folk singer
songwriter Emily Hearnl

This year’s NACA Mid America
slogan was “Welcome to the Future" for
reasons most readers would have heard ad
nauseum The references to the movie at
the conference were many and constant,
extending even to the conference center’s wifi
password, which was “greatscottl” only to
further stretch the already exhausted tropel

In addition to these events, the
conference ofi’ered three meals Expenses
worked out, however, so that all of the
additional meals were covered, so those that
were not covered by preliminary conference
cost could be bought in Grand Rapids
restaurants in the hotel and conference center
area

During the final dinner provided by
the conference, Illinois Tech was overjoyed to
learn that they had one a programming award
for their Spring 2015 MTCC Late Night event,
which, for those that were not here or do not
remember, was Willy Wonka themed

Some notable performers included
Kel Mitchell, who was the host of the final
Showcase of the weekend, the folk duo Less is
More, the indie band The Burgeoningl Thanks
to conferences like these, it has never been
easier to find and book great artist for great
performances and events on college campuses
like Illinois Tech’sl