Hello Judges,

I’m Eddie Mountney, and on behalf of the USA – East, I’m excited to invite you all to our region’s next Online Judge Conference!

This conference will be held on Saturday, May 08, 2021, online, beginning at 9:00 am.  The conference will include 4 presentations and a short break for lunch (25 min), wrapping up around 1:15pm.

Being Mother’s Day weekend, this earlier start time  will hopefully be more conducive with everyone’s schedule, should they have Mother’s Day plans.

This conference will be a little different from my previous one in early January.  Instead of judges being forced to listen to either a Hard skills or Soft skills presentation, judges will have the choice to select either a hard skills presentation from Track A or a soft skills presentation from Track B.  Each participant will attend 4 presentations total.

Participants are expected to give each presenter their attention and the respect that they deserve.

Digital Platform

We will be using discord for this conference.  More information on that will come as the event date approaches.

Because discord has a cap of 50 participants in a chat room being able to view the stream, judges will be given a link allowing them to sign up for their presentation ahead of time to a maximum of 50 participants in each time slot.

Registration and Foil Support

All judges from USA – East are welcome to apply, but due to limited foil support, priority will be given to judges in the Eastern PA and surrounding area, which includes the following states: Pennsylvannia, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware.

Judge Academy has allotted us to offer attendees a selection of promotional foil cards for up to 75 participants.  These foils are available if you meet the following criteria:

– Register for the conference by applying to this event

– Be a certified (Level 1 or higher) Judge with Judge Academy at the time you apply, or if you certify after applying, email me at em610161@wcupa.edu

– Be accepted to this event as one of the 75 participants

– Complete 1 feedback form  and 1 address collection form

Unlike previous conferences where you were expected to complete 4 feedback forms (1 for each presentation), this time I ask that choose 1 of the presentations you attended and complete at least 1 feedback form, but you put a larger amount of effort into it.  You are welcome to complete more than 1 feedback form if desired.  More information on this will come on the day of the conference.

Presenters

Excellent presenters are an essential element of a successful conference. To that end, we are looking for 8 presenters who are willing to present on this conference’s theme.  4 presenters covering hard skills topics and 4 presenters covering soft skills topics.  If you have a presentation that you think would be good, then make sure to mention that in your application.  If you are interested in presenting, please email me with your proposal at em610161@wcupa.edu as soon as possible. Your proposal should include:

– Seminar topic

– Previous experience presenting this or other topics

– Presentation method of preference in the virtual setting (i.e. Discord, ZOOM, Google Meet, etc.)

Get excited to start off the summer with a great conference!  See you there!