The Black Professionals in Tech Network (BPTN) is on a mission to bridge the network gap between Black talent and career opportunities across North America.

BPTN helps Black professionals network, connect with one another, share resources, and grow their careers. This rapidly growing community is made up of a network of over 30,000 Black professionals and partner organizations including TD, AWS and Microsoft, among many others.

What challenges were BPTN facing?

Party.Space regularly runs initiatives to help communities that are on the front lines of social change. Since the coronavirus is in no hurry to leave and offline gatherings are not an option, meetings online have become the go-to solution. Most of these communities maintain communication the old-fashioned way, using Zoom or Google Meet. That's why we approached BPTN with a proposal to use Party.Space for one of their community events, free of charge.

At the time of the pandemic, BPTN was using a few different digital platforms for its online events. We wanted to introduce the BPTN tech community to a new kind of experience with Party. Space's 3D virtual events. After having contacted the company's representatives and enlisting their support, Party.Space prepared a full-featured 3D experience.

"When we connected with thePartySpace team, we were impressed by the immersive and engaging experience on the platform. Having seen some ofParty.Space's past projects, we quickly realized this would be of interest to our community of tech professionals."

– says Melissa Haughton, Senior Community Manager at BPTN.
‍

The Solution

BPTN was hosting a ‘Jam session’ networking event for its community.. The organizers wanted to create space for informal communication between members and a virtual performance by a guest DJ. If you've never been to a Party.Space event, here are a few pointers to help you figure out what's what: 

• After logging into the system, every participant enters an entirely three-dimensional space. For convenience, you can imagine the three-dimensional space of any computer game. The only difference is that in the case of Party.Space, it is a full-fledged concert hall with many themed rooms making up one overarching party. We branded the area using the logos and brand colors of BPTN.
• There is a dance hall in the center of the space where everyone can listen to the DJ's set, people can also gather around the virtual ‘bar’ area to talk with other members.
• Unlike Zoom, the mechanics of the space allows visitors to communicate in groups while watching the performance on stage. Everything is like in real life - the closer you are to a person, the better you hear them, and they hear you. 
• People can communicate in groups while inhabiting a single space without interfering with each other.
  

The Result

On Friday July 16, 2021 BPTN community members entered a custom-branded 3D space. More than 200 attendees from Vancouver, Toronto, Florida, and Wyoming spent 1.5 hours online, listening to the DJ jam and having friendly conversations. The average session length for all attendees was 1 hour and 10 minutes, providing attendees with a fun start to their weekends.

"We received excellent feedback from community members. Everyone was very impressed with the unconventional approach, especially compared to the typical virtual event experience . We would definitely recommend Party.Space to anyone who wants to have a memorable and engaging event"

– concludes Melissa Haughton, Senior Community Manager at Black Professionals in Tech Network.