Website Director

Description

TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less) with a mission to spread ideas. We welcome people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world.

TEDx is an international community that organizes TED-style events anywhere and everywhere, celebrating locally-driven ideasand elevating them to a global stage. TEDx events are producedindependently of TED conferences, each event curates speakers ontheir own, but based on TED's format and rules.

TEDxITB 7.0: The Impact Originator Hub is more than just a traditional talk event where attendees simply seat-listen-leave. It is a dynamic platform designed to shape a community and serve as an Impact Originator Hub. This hub empowers local originators to recognize, connect, and inspire one another, leading to broader societal impacts.

Library / Tools Used

• Next.js (Fullstack Framework)
• React (JS Library)
• TailwindCSS (CSS Library)
• Typescript (Typesafe for JS)
• shadcn/ui (UI Library)
• NextAuth (Auth Library)
• Prisma (ORM)
• React Email (Email Templates)
• Resend (SMTP PaaS)
• DatoCMS (CMS)
• PostHog (Analytics)
• Cloudinary (Bucket Storage)
• NeonDB (Serverless Postgres)
• Framer (Animations)

Development Experience

Leading a website team in a campus committee was a first for me. My team comprised two UI/UX designers, Atqiya and Will ; two back-end engineers, Nuel and Guntur ; and six front-end engineers, Afif , Naufal , Mesach , Gana , Elbert , and Randy . Their dedication and collaboration were crucial to the website's success.

We held weekly meetings to review the current sprint milestones. Most of the development work occurred during the holidays after the final exams because the period between midterms and finals was packed with major assignments. Despite the chaos, we managed to complete all components before the finals, leaving the holiday period for finishing touches on pages and API endpoints.

The website featured mainly simple static pages, but the magazine and main event/ticketing pages stood out. Afif did a fantastic job with the magazine page, creating a smooth book-opening animation and a great page-turning effect that received much praise.

The ticketing page, though seemingly simple, involved handling multiple states and conditions in the ticketing flow. Naufal managed the front-end while Nuel took care of the back-end. I remember working with Naufal over a Discord call to finalize the front-end while I was on vacation.

Last but not least, an interesting story emerged when the event team requested a QR code scanner (for the main event attendance) to us just a week before the main event. This sudden request came during an already chaotic week filled with quizzes and assignments. Despite the tight schedule, I managed to develop and test the QR code scanner just in time for the technical meeting the night before the event. Through this experience, I also learned the crucial importance of incorporating white or light-colored borders around QR codes to ensure they are scannable (Good thing I realized this before the main event starts, otherwise it would've been 💀).

In the end, over 3300 people visited this website and over 650 people registered on the TEDxITB website , making this one of the most successful projects I’ve worked on, thanks to the excellent team and collaboration across divisions.

Overall, I learned that managing people in your team is not as easy as it looks. Everyone has their own schedule or commitments, so sometimes not all of them can attend our weekly meetings or even events. But nonetheless, it's still okay as long as communication is not forgotten.

Events

Unlike previous TEDxITB events, the staff onboarding for this event was conducted online via Zoom. It was a straightforward introduction to the team and workflow, explaining the technology we would use. Unfortunately, due to the timing during the holidays, only a few people attended.

Similar to past events, we had an internal bonding event at OBC Futsal. Three team members attended—Afif, Naufal, and myself. We enjoyed playing basketball, tug of war, blind football, and more for three hours. Afterward, we had a meal at Maow Makan, where I highly recommend the Nasi Ayam Hainam. We spent the afternoon chatting and relaxing until I had to leave for a meeting with the event division.

The main event was the highlight. Sadly, only Afif could join me due to an Algorithmic Strategy assignment deadline that night. Nonetheless, everything went smoothly. Afif and I were tasked with managing ticket scanning at the main hall.

I learned a lot from this experience. We encountered users with unique challenges that I didn't really expect when developing the project, such as broken LCD screens, poor internet connections, and forgotten registration emails.

I also had the chance to meet Fatih, the director of the previous TEDxITB website, and other former directors, which was a memorable experience.

Overall, the main event was a success. At the end of the main event, all of the staff took a photo together on the main stage, and we all went home happily ever after.