Challenge
There are few life moments filled with more pride, excitement, and tradition than graduation. Years of hard work and dedication lead up to a single day of students and families commemorating and celebrating the transition from one chapter to the next. With thousands of Columbia students crossing the commencement stage every year, the Office of the President takes the responsibility of capturing these standout moments seriously.
Commencement spans 20 schools over the course of two weeks, but for a long time, was only accessible to the handful of guests who could attend in-person in New York. “When I started 13 years ago, we weren’t live streaming any graduation ceremonies,” says Rudy Rodriguez, Senior Associate Director of Technology at Columbia University’s Office of the President. Rudy and his team realized that through video, they could expand these once-in-a-lifetime moments to families around the world — far beyond the logistical confines of its 30,000-person capacity event spaces.
The team live streamed its commencement ceremonies for the first time in 2011. After getting a couple of events under their belts, they realized two things: 1) their initial partner had limitations in terms of where they could distribute the events online, and 2) if they were to scale their strategy, they’d need a little more hands-on help.
“We needed a solution that could offer us more reach, while still being reliable. As we vetted video solutions, we needed a partner who could send out a team to support us, because we didn’t have the resources to do it on our own.”
Rudy Rodriguez, Senior Associate Director of Technology at Columbia Universitys Office of the President
