Girls Who Code wins in BIC/J-School Cross Disciplinary Collaboration

A select group of BIC students were able to explore the topic of branded content in a one-credit course on Native Advertising that allowed them to collaborate with students from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. Starting in March with an online discussion, BICsters took their curiosity to a unique "co-conference” on March 11th at the J-School on 40th Street sponsored by both schools entitled "Journalism in the Age of Branded Content...and Vice Versa."  This sold out event featured top experts and executives from PRWeek, Contently, IBM, Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Afterwards, five cross-disciplinary teams composed of students from both schools broke out into work sessions to develop  “speed" campaigns anchored in a branded content solution for one of these brands: Shiseido, Red Rooster in Harlem, Memorial Sloan Kettering, Intel, and Girls Who Code.  

The five teams met up once again on Wednesday, March 23rd to present their campaigns to a panel of professionals who included Ashley Bode (Marcus Samuelsson Group), Charles Van Es (Vita Coco), Diallo Hall (Loquatio), David M. Olsen (Tyco), Deborah Singer (Girls Who Code), and Fara Warner (Wall Street Journal Custom Studios). The night concluded with highest praise going to the campaign for Girls Who Code which used robots and influencers on YouTube to inspire girls in high school to become coders. This team featured BIC students Castro Desroches, Diana Friedman, and Megan Beth Fullagar.

The idea for this unique cross-disciplinary collaboration began as a conversation between BIC Program Director Nancy Tag and J-School Dean Sarah Bartlett. For BICsters, it blossomed into a one-credit BIC course on Native Advertising that was anchored by the March conference and student collaboration — all done in concert with J-School faculty and members of the Tow-Knight Center Jeff Jarvis, Hal Straus, and Jeremy Caplan.