Robin Schoss

### MyMUN - Advancing Model UN through Technology A lot of conferences I have attended suffer from the same illness: a bad information infrastructure. Even conferences with thousands of participants rely on spreadsheets maintained by hand to organize their committees and events. Everyone agrees this is unacceptable, but no initiative has been taken to remedy it, until now. The challenges in building up the MyMUN platform are threefold: first of all, I needed to find the right tools for the job. Luckily, one of my closest friends (whom I can now happily call my business partner) is a crafty and downright ingenious computer scientist with his finger constantly on the pulse of technology. He introduced me to cutting- and bleeding edge technologies that enabled us to build the platform independently. His vigilance and resourcefulness (and his relentlessness in teaching me the tools of his trade) are the very foundation of our project. Secondly, we needed to get the word out about our product if we wanted to build a sustainable business on top of it. While the platform advertises itself to its users, this is not enough to grow – this is where the blood, sweat, and tears of acquisition come in. It’s a tedious and ungrateful job at the core of every business to write hundreds of letters and offers, most of the time without getting a response. Yet at some point, the customers started trickling in and by this point, we’re proudly serving dozens of conferences in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Australia, the US, with thousands of delegates both at the high school and university level! We also have a few select MUN veterans, called “MyMUN Ambassadors” that are helping us getting the word out to every corner of the world. Lastly, the continuous challenge is to keep moving forward and improving. We have an endless list of ideas and suggestions on how to move the platform forward, and we’re working on making all of it happen in due time. The positive responses from the MUN community keep us motivated to do this.