About NSU Florida
Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is a private research university with its main campus in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. NSU has a student population of about 29,000, with regional campuses spread throughout Florida.
The Business Innovation Academy is an undergraduate scholarship program at their H. Wayne Huizenga College of Business & Entrepreneurship. It allows the handpicked scholarship recipients to start their businesses while still at university.
Keeping domestic and overseas students connected virtually
In the inaugural year of their Business Innovation Academy program, Director Monica Paneque needed to find a virtual alternative for their 2-week hands-on summer boot camp experience. With a student body comprised of almost 8% international students, she needed a solution that would allow both local and overseas students to participate.
“Honestly, the students, even at that point, were unengaged within Zoom, and it didn't give them that freedom to move around and talk to each other…”
–Monica Paneque, Director, Huizenga Business Innovation Academy
Other virtual event platforms just didn't feel as inviting and engaging – they either felt very restrictive or like a jigsaw of black boxes that didn’t fit together.
The perfect match: a platform as close to a live experience as you can get
After attending an event on Remo themselves all the pieces seemed to fall into place. Monica and her colleague found the only virtual experience platform that met the needs of their program.
With easy-to-use customizable banners and table names, Monica and her team were able to set up an event that helped replicate the in-person experience that both local and international students would have had. The students were able to jump between tables freely to explore their areas of interest and network to form teams.
After the success of this 2-week boot camp experience, Monica started using Remo for other recruitment events like the popular “Dinner with the Dean” for potential students – where attendance rates were as high as their previous in-person iterations.
“Having Remo allowed me to continue those partnerships with my community partners that feed us potential students...we were able to have almost 600 potential students come during the pandemic that we would have lost otherwise.”
–Monica Paneque, Director, Huizenga Business Innovation Academy
NSU takes virtual event innovation to the next level
Over a year later, in 2021 Monica and the Business Innovation Academy are still using Remo.
After seeing Monica’s success, other colleges and departments at NSU have also started using the platform for more varied use cases, including – career fairs, holiday parties, study sessions, academic conferences, and even business trade shows.
And despite the return to in-person classes, NSU continues to host 10+ virtual events per month on Remo.
“We have restrictions on event capacities (on-campus) which is one of the many reasons why we chose to continue using Remo since we can have hundreds of people in a “room.” And of course, the virtual world has shown us that we can bring speakers and entrepreneurs from all over the world and expose our students to such a broader scope of people and knowledge.”
–Monica Paneque, Director, Huizenga Business Innovation Academy
Now, Monica’s team is taking their virtual events to the next level by leveraging their favorite Remo feature – custom floor plans. They’ve brought virtual life to one of their most popular on-campus event venues, the DeSantis building Courtyard Atrium!
Like any event venue, the Atrium is open for bookings, with the only difference being that double-bookings are not a problem anymore. NSU’s MD College was the first to use the Atrium event space, where they hosted a poster session with over 400 students.
“I think the Atrium is going to make people at the University are more comfortable and open to using Remo because they can now picture our real space and just say, “Hey, I'm just gonna run my event the same way I did before, in the Atrium!”.
–Monica Paneque, Director, Huizenga Business Innovation Academy
If you too would like to host your university’s varied roster of events in a space that is truly yours, sign up for Remo’s free plan today!
How NSU Florida Pivoted and Expanded their Roster of Virtual Events.
