17 May CivTechSA College Ideathon Friday Night Kickoff Event
Today is the last day to register for the CivTechSA College Ideathon competition! Friday, we kickoff the event in the Geekdom Event Center by having the City’s IT department (ITSD) pitch 10 departmental challenges to local college students for the chance to win a paid internship with the City of San Antonio.
What to Expect
Students will arrive at the Event Center by 5:30pm where we’ll get everyone checked in and decked out with CivTechSA Gear. Next, we’ll set expectations for the weekend and cover the agenda for the evening.
The dedicated ITSD Mentors each do a 1-minute pitch of the department challenges to the students. Students will then self-select which challenge they want to work on and break into teams.
Each team will have an ITSD Mentor to help them work through their ideas, providing a clear lens of how the ideas could be implemented within the department.
Challenges & ITSD Mentors
- IT Onboarding, Daniel Zucker
- Public Safety Mobility, Lorena Maldonado
- Idea Box, Kathy Esquivel
- Architecture Visualization, Frederick Forehand
- Helpdesk Automation, Cynthia Ramirez
- Services Catalog, Abe Solis
- Employee Provisioning, Steve Meyer
- Request Form Automation, Tracy Nation & Johnathan Becker
- Digital Training Library, Julian Harris & Luz Andrea Diaz
- PMO Dashboard, Eddie Johnson
Team & Operations Floats
ITSD has really stepped up and supplied Geekdom and CivTechSA with some amazing helpers throughout the duration of the weekend, including Craig Hopkins the City’s Chief Information Officer! These helpers include Team and Operations Floats who will pop around and keep the students and the ITSD Mentors on task as well as provide critical feedback during the ideation process.
- Craig Hopkins
- Ivan Santos
- Louise Craig
- Edward Martinez
- Bridget Lewis-McKinney
CivTechSA, USAA & Cisco Mentors
And the perks just keep coming: Not only do we get some amazing and talented people from the City to help facilitate the ideation process over the course of the event, but we also get to include some of our wonderful CivTechSA Mentors from the Geekdom community. Even Cisco and USAA is getting involved!
- Crystal Darby, UTSA
- Jeremy Karney, Formula Idea Works
- Lea Sims, USAA
- Joseph Mlodzianowski, Cisco
Scoring Criteria & Judges
We’ve broken down and weighted the scoring requirements to emphasize creative thinking balanced with feasibility of execution of the student ideas. This is to reward innovative ideas that can be applied practically and within reason. The students want to receive the highest amount of points out of 80.
- Originality/Innovation (20)
- Solves a Problem (1-10)
- Leverages Existing Technology (1-10)
- Increases Efficiency (1-10)
- Feasibility: Cost, Viability, Execution (1-10)
- Sustainability (1-10)
Our illustrious judges include several dynamos from the City and Geekdom, including Maria Viallagomez the Assistant City Manager and Geekdom’s CEO, David Garcia! This panel represents a balanced group of individuals representing San Antonio’s leadership and tech communities.
- Maria Villagomez
- David Garcia
- Olga Bennet, Sr. IT Manager of ITSD
- Igor Negovetic, ITSD Business Relationship Manager
- Debra Innocenti-Placette, Partner of Innocenti-Jones, PLLC
Final Presentations
Final presentations will begin at 3:30pm on Saturday in the Geekdom Event Center. This is where the student teams will knock the socks off of the judging panel as they compete for the coveted internship with ITSD.
During the paid internship, the team will get the opportunity to further develop their idea, have a dedicated ITSD mentor, and put their project in front of the City to get implemented in the department.
For more information about how you can get involved in CivTechSA, email us at civtechsa@geekdom.com.