While events across the world were being canceled due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, Ethan Selinger and his team had a different idea: Go virtual.

For weeks, the Khoury College assistant co-op coordinator and his colleagues had been planning Algorithms and Interview Prep, a collaborative event with nonprofit Women Who Code Boston. The event, meant to take place on campus on March 19, would have been a novel opportunity for students and local professionals to come together and collaborate on code.

“Nobody wants to just cancel something when the technologies are out there to make things work,” Selinger said. “We’re in the computer science realm, so we’re the ones who should be trying to get these events online.”

The event, which took place virtually on the evening of April 2, was dedicated to helping participants improve technical interview skills and practice developing recursive algorithms, which are models that refer back to themselves. Women Who Code Boston holds similar events on a monthly basis. This most recent one was unique: It marked not only their first virtual event in this series, but their first partnership with a university.

Selinger is familiar with many coding meet-ups in the Greater Boston Area, but he chose to reach out to leaders at Women Who Code Boston because he felt their work aligned seamlessly with that of Khoury College. Additionally, the organization offers the technical interview practice Northeastern students are constantly searching for.

“Based on our college’s mission and values, Women Who Code is an organization we want to be associated with,” Selinger said.

Women Who Code (WWCode) is a global nonprofit focused on diversifying the computer science field. Its network includes over 80 WWCode chapters based in locations from Ghana to Australia to China. The organization welcomes anyone to participate, regardless of age, coding expertise, or gender.

Partnering with a university opens up entirely new pathways for increasing diversity in the technical field, according to event organizers. Shruti Dalvi, a lead at Women Who Code Boston, looks forward to using the partnership with Northeastern University’s Khoury College to forge connections between current industry employers and students. Dalvi co-hosted the virtual event with Shayna Cummings.

“The event is encouraging students who will be soon joining the industry to have those professional connections,” Shruti Dalvi said. “By way of just being there, whether you are not yet in the industry or have been in the industry, it lowers the barrier to entry by having a Woman Who Code event in sync with Northeastern.”

Selinger echoed these sentiments. Events like this get Khoury students in a room writing code with working professionals who may one day hire them. Students who attend, Selinger said, are immersed in an exciting collaborative networking environment.

Leaders from Khoury College and Women Who Code Boston strove to recreate such an environment when transitioning to the virtual world. The lecture on recursive algorithms was given via Zoom video call, followed by small group meetings in Zoom “breakout rooms.” Practice problems were posted on GitHub, and conversations related to the event were hashed out over Slack.

When the session was opened up to feedback, many participants expressed their enthusiasm to continue virtual events like this as long as the pandemic lasts. Organizers could take a deep breath; the event had been a success. However, it had elicited from participants a deliberate degree  of positivity and communication — two skills ironically needed to do well in technical interviews, no matter the medium.

“In the interview, there are always going to be challenging problems, just like there are in real life,” Dalvi said. “But your attitude toward them is something that will stay back with whoever is looking forward to working with you.”