It’s gonna be EPIC!

In my four years in Engineering one thing has become very apparent to me, there are a lot of really interesting people doing some really cool things in technology. The problem is – it’s so hard to find out about this! My mission this summer was to try to find a way to change this. The solution – start an organization dedicated to connecting students with a passion for technology and informing them of some of the amazing things going on in tech.

The organization I helped found is called EPIC! EPIC is a student run not-for-profit organization dedicated to Educating, Promoting, Inspiring, and Connecting students with a passion for technology, in a fun and exciting way. EPIC is a platform for collaboration between industry, academia and the student body on topics relating to technology, innovation, ideas and action.

EPIC serves as a cross-platform medium where individuals from different institutes can collaborate and connect. Where ideas can be discussed and shared with an audience of students with a vested interest in technology.

EPIC reaches out to students in high school s, Colleges and Universities from across Canada to help inform students about some of the newest advancements in technology and spark discussion on where these advancements will take us in the future.

The EPIC team currently consists of about 20 Executives and 10 Campus Ambassadors from various schools including: University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, York University, Ryerson, Conestoga and UOIT. We also have a Board of Advisors with members from companies like Google and Rogers!

The first conference (or EpCon as we are calling it) will be taking place on January 15-16, 2010 in Waterloo, On. Check out our website: www.epictech.org/2010 to find out more and join our mailing list to stay informed. We also have a facebook page that you can become a fan of to keep up on some of the cool things we are going to be doing!

We are always looking for people to join the team and help out so if you are interested please contact me at Jaclyn@epictech.org!

Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference

This week was the 10th annual Canadian Undergraduate Technology Conference. The CUTC is the largest undergraduate-run conference in Canada and was founded 10 years ago by UW Engineering students. Three of my classmates and myself attended the conference as delegates and it was a great experience and we took away a lot of valuable knowledge from the speakers and seminars.

This year there were three excellent keynote speakers from OpenText (a well established UW spin-off company), Rypple (a small start up company based out of Toronto) and Engineers without Borders (an international non-profit organization founded by UW Engineering students). Each speaker had a unique and valuable message and each had an insightful and inspiring message to share.

In addition to the keynote speakers, the conference also included seminars on a broad range of technology related topics including nanotechnology, technical entrepreneurship, technology sectors and air traffic control. Each of these speakers had impressive credentials and years of experience. This made them an invaluable resource for the undergraduate delegates.

The conference was held in downtown Toronto - which was a blast! During some free time my friends and I took a trip to the newly opened Art Gallery of Ontario. The architecture of the building was absolutely phenomenal and the art gallery was so much larger than I had anticipated. I'm sure we could have spent hours longer viewing all of the art. It was a great change of pace and an awesome culmination to our trip to Toronto.