Samantha Irby

For my Public Relations Campaigns class I  dedicated myself to the NASA International Space Apps Challenge.The International Space Apps Challenge is a 48-hour hack-a-thon where participants join together to create solutions for NASA created challenges. These challenges address issues here on earth and in space. The solutions that these participants created are in the form of software, open hardware, and data visualization.  The main goal of the event at our location was to foster collaboration among students, faculty, business professionals, and the local community. We were one of only  three universities selected to host this event and one of seventy total locations worldwide. 

This event was the result of my collaboration with other Capstone students and NASA project leaders. For this event, I undertook various research methods and used all of the tools available to me. I conducted personal interviews and focus groups to gain some qualitative data from the students at the University of Oklahoma. Since this is a campus wide event, my group and I wanted to gauge the interest of the students and get an insight into how much they already knew about NASA. From there we were able to select fifteen of the fifty challenges available that fit our target audience. 

Once our information was gathered I reached out to the faculty, various organizations on campus, and local entrepreneurs to help my team spread the word. Through web-blasts, flyers, personal appearances, and a multitude of social media outreach we were able to garner the awareness of thousands of people in our target audience. 

In order for the event to be a success, it was also necessary to work with facilities on campus and take care of the logistics. I assisted in garnering the venues, resources, food, prizes, and experienced judges for this event.