| Client name | Rutgers |
| Project | Rutgers GUSO Project |
| Specialism | communication, animation, conference, design, online |
| Weblink | Rutgers International |
Covid19 made a lot of organisations re-approach their activities. Including Rutgers. How do you execute planned activities without travel? For their project, Get Up Speak Out, Rutgers was nearing the end of the project’s lifespan. Usually people travel to one of the project countries and discuss & evaluate. In 2020, this was not possible.
That’s where Beyond Borders Media came in. We helped Rutgers to go digital. And then did some more. Swapping a face-to-face experience with a digital one; this is a challenging transition as you can never fully replace a real-life experience. Here is how we did it!
Digital Conference
Overarching, communication has to be lively and engaging. As the project spans seven countries in Africa and Asia, and has a lot of different cultures, it should fit a broad audience. On top, it would include a lot of young people. It had to be fun as well.
With people joining from seven project countries (Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Pakistan and Indonesia), we wanted to conduct every session at a time suitable for everyone. To fit the time difference, each session was done between 9-12am in the morning (Central European Time).
We came up with a digital conference with a very varied programme. Ranging from in-depth discussions on research to music performances and stand-up comedy. This conference was held via Zoom, spanned around 25 sessions and was divided over four different days.
The conference was kicked-off by a 1.5 hour livestream. We operated the livestream from Rutgers’ main office in Utrecht. This was hosted and featured several interviewees in studio and dialing in via Zoom. Here below you can view the full livestream session.
Exhibition Space
Another change Beyond Borders Media brought was in displaying results. We created a digital exhibition space. With input from all seven project countries, and the main office an online space emerged. With a feeling as if you scroll through an museum, including art on the wall.
You enter a lobby and can visit each project countries’ room. The exhibition space features various types of media: videos, photography, human interest stories, project results, research publications, quotes and more.
GUSO Magazine
Not stopping at the exhibition and conference, Beyond Borders Media also lived up project results. In the form of a Get Up Speak Out Magazine. It features overarching project stories, results and data in a magazine format and layout.
Project results per country have been featured too – giving each country a small mini-magazine for itself too. Beyond Borders Media was in charge of concept, design, copywriting and overall publication.
In the process, Beyond Borders Media also created various animation videos to support GUSO’s project communication.