Overview

SECSoc has “SCONES”. LawSoc has “Law Society Conference”. Capital W has their “2014/15/16/17..22 Annual Dinner”. The Business societies have 12309234 conferences/galas/dinners/etc.

So why does CSESoc, the largest CS uni society in the southern hemisphere, in the hottest industry of the 21st century, in an unlimited money in a world dominated by tech conferences, not have its own conference?

End Game

CSESoc Annual Tech Conference (NAME TBD). The flagship of all flagship events. Banquet dinners in lavish venues with representatives from our most generous sponsors alongside handpicked guest speakers from the community.

TL;DR → let’s have a tech conference

Hold the breaks for this year…

Well, as much as I’d love to listen to Mark Zuckerberg talk about the Metaverse inside a rented out Crown Casino, there is not enough time to set one up this year .

Later this term, let’s trial a smaller scale version to demonstrate proof of concept:

And next year from day 0, you can launch into planning the craziest tech conference.

CSESoc Software Projects Expo (NAME TBD)

Overview

An evening of tech talks, food, networking.

Stats

Capacity → 150+ students (pending room booking)

When → T3 W7 (pending room booking)

Food → Lobster + wine (has to be this for the marketing appeal)

Budget → 5k?

Guests

Speakers sourced from representatives of our largest sponsors, your favourite lecturers and notable people in the CSESoc community.

Theme

To control the quality under such short time constraints, we will make the theme what we know best:

Guest speakers will present a personal project of theirs in an engaging, story-telling manner, along with their pearls of wisdom and insights into how it impacted their CS journey.

Other

It’s 5am, but this is pretty much it, a smaller-scale but still cool tech talk.

What do we gain?

Students

It’s a great event to have for the students as it exposes them to the tech world and gives them valuable insights from various speakers.

Sponsors

The potential appeal to sponsors is massive. We can make a benefit of being a Principal Sponsor that they can provide a representatives at one of our future massive tech conferences.

Most Importantly

It’s sooooooooooo cool . JUST IMAGINE IT.

Current Timeline, Progress and Actionable Items

Guest Speakers

We have a potential guest list sorted. Draft emails have been done for Sponsors and Lecturers (https://devsoc.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/createpage.action?spaceKey=CW&title=Software%20Projects%20Expo%20Planning). They can go out as soon as this event is approved.

Venue

At the minimum we have already secured a small lecture theatre of 113 capacity. We will almost certainly upgrade to one with at least 200 capacity. Pending smoothness of acquiring guest speakers + perceived popularity of the event, we will aim to upgrade even further.

Logistics → Marketing/Food

It has to be lobster and wine trust (maybe chuck in some caviar). This is PIVOTAL for marketing. We also discussed a ticketing system (potentially paid but like 95% discounted so like $5 a ticket lol).

Can start planning as soon as this event is approved.

Budget

Rough approval from Colin that we can get the budget we need as long as our event has the attendees, the guests and the sponsors.