Eva Davis - President

[evadavis]

Name: Eva Davis

President

Manifesto

Who am I/ Why me?

• Hello! My name's Eva and I am running for President of HackSoc :).
• I'm the current General Secretary and have been on the HackSoc committee for two years, so I would say I've got a good idea of the runnings of the society :).
• I have also organised HackNotts for two years
• I have been on the Computer Science Mentoring Scheme for two years as well :)
• I love going to hackathons :) I have particularly enjoyed doing hardware hacks (and praying I don't blow up my Raspberry Pi, while doing them!).

Plans for HackSoc next year:

There are a few things that HackSoc should aim for next year:

• Bringing back Programming Cafe, in Spokes and making it more open to other members (not just committee :) ). As well as this, it would be advertised with the same importance as other HackSoc events.

• Working more closely with Computer Science. This would include working with the department so we can have a more active presence within the School, aside from just advertising at Welcome Week and open days. As well as this, it would involve communicating with the other Computer Science societies: CompSoc and Women in CS Soc, having more collaborations to establish a community within the department.

• Making the society more inclusive: Having spoken to other students both outside and within the Computer Science department, there are steps that need to be taken to make the society more open to others. I attempted to help with this through our collaboration with Women In STEM Society but there is much more than can be done (although I would love to do another collaboration with them next year!). For example, to make the society more accessible to others, we should not be hosting our workshops in A07. Students that are not part of the Computer Science department do not have access to the building. We should make more of an effort to book rooms in the Exchange Building. As previously stated, I would like to work closely with the Women in Computer Science Society to get their advice on how we could make HackSoc more inclusive :).

• Getting more storage for HackSoc: We can't keep all our stuff at James' house again.

• HackNotts: Plans for HackNotts are underway and I want to make sure that organisation will run as smoothly as possible. This has been helped already by increasing communication with other hackathons, through Daudi's creation of WanSoc. I believe that communication is the most important part of organising a hackathon, both within the organising team and to the participants, which is something that I will be working on to improve next year!

• Make hackathons more accessible: I would like to use as much of the profits from HackNotts next year (if it is feasibly possible (and assuming that we make a profit)) to provide at least some travel reimbursements for students travelling to hackathons. (I've just spent £80 on train tickets to hackathons). If we do not make a large enough profit to achieve this on our own, other avenues to raise the money will be considered: applying for SU funding, talking to the School of CS and also discussing with the SU how members could claim back their expenses if they are eligible for the opportunities fund. I've been so happy to see the high amount of members that have been attending hackathons this year, but I don't want finances to be a barrier to anyone.

• Maintain the high quality of events that we have been running this year, especially with the wide range of speakers that we have been lucky enough to have!

• Uplifting members: HackSoc's members are so talented- the projects I have seen at hackathons in the past two years are just amazing. These members deserve to be recognised for their achievements. I would like to do this either through showing off winning hackathon projects on our Instagram or perhaps in the Computer Science weekly newsletter as well! (I'm also open to other suggestions!)

My main goal as President is to be the driving force behind these goals and make sure that they are actively being worked on. I am also committed to fulfilling other duties within the Student Union, such as representing the society at the Activities Councils and working on having the society recognised for its achievements.

Thanks for reading my ramblings - I hope you will consider me for President this year :D