The Limit Does Not Exist — Tackle 2024: Limitless
Words by: Elijah Mejilla
UP CURSOR held its first hybrid iteration of Tackle entitled Tackle 2024: Limitless, last February 24–28. Tackle is an annual career fair catered towards CS/IT students to help them connect with the corporate world and professionals in their field.
Previous versions of Tackle were held either fully online during the pandemic or fully face-to-face before that. But, this year, the 4-day event was split into two parts: the first two days took place online, while the last two days were held onsite at Melchor Hall.
“Based on the responses of the companies last year, a lot of them prefer the hybrid set-up,” said Tackle Co-Head Marius Barcenas. “Since a lot of events are going F2F, I don’t think it’s right we should have stayed fully online, and I think the F2F set-up helped especially in terms of reaching a lot more people since the booths were just open in Melchor.”
This meant that the issues they had experienced would be unprecedented, and they would have to come up with solutions on the fly.
“We encountered a lot of scheduling and manpower issues,” according to Tackle Co-Head Kai Antonio. “Coupled with our demanding academics, as well as lots of back-and-forth with the companies, [we had] to make sure everything (on the legal side) was smooth.”
The first day of Tackle was held through Zoom, and featured company talks by Kodexa: and Azeus Systems Philippines Limited. Samsung R&D Institute Philippines would have held a third talk for the day, but it was cancelled due to schedule conflicts. The two other companies that pushed through introduced themselves, their histories, and the kind of work they do.
The talks weren’t the only fun part of the event, though. On each day, participants were given the chance to interact and have fun with the hosts, winning prizes and vouchers through icebreaker games and raffles.
Day 2 of Tackle continued with the company talks, hosted by Geri Juganas and Bea Yukdawan. This time, the talks were held by Macquarie Group Services (Philippines) Inc., Home Credit Philippines, and Jupiter Systems Inc. Macquarie Groups’ and Jupiter Systems Inc. introduced their companies to the audience, and Jupiter Systems Inc. gave a more general talk on how to navigate career paths within the tech industry.
With the first two days being successful, it was time to bring Tackle from Zoom to Melchor. The third and fourth days were held in two segments: live company talks held at the Engineering Theater and onsite company booths held at the second floor.
Participants could listen to the corporate talks in the morning, and then visit the company booths in the afternoon. Visiting booths allowed participants to win prizes and understand the kind of work they would be doing in the company.
Tackle also gave bingo cards to their participants, where they would mark off slots by completing tasks. These tasks include following pages of partner companies, going up to and visiting certain booths, and attending company talks. Completing the bingo card enters you into a raffle with prizes such as a keyboard, a hard drive, and an Amazon Echo.
Nina Sapitula and Aisha Go hosted the company talks for Day 3. The first talk was given by Baytech BPO Corporation, while Azeus Systems Philippines Ltd. also made a return to introduce themselves face-to-face.
The final day of Tackle 2024: Limitless was marked by talks from Indra Philippines and Maya. Indra Philippines held the first talk, giving an overview of their company and work environment. Maya’s company talk, on the other hand, was delivered by our very own UP CURSOR alumni, Nathan Cruel and Mikaela Angeles.
And with the end of Day 4, Tackle came to a close.
Despite all the challenges faced by the new setup — as well as the sheer difficulty of planning an event of this scale — Tackle proved to be successful across its 4-day runtime.
“We did surpass all our expectations on D-Day by the amount of people who came and interacted with the booths,” Kai added. They were right! By the end, Tackle boasted over 100 participants averaged over Days 1 and 2, and [#] visitors during the face-to-face events.
With the amount of students looking to take a step into the corporate world, it seems that Tackle does live up to its theme — that our potential is indeed limitless.
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