Computer Science student wins WCIT Bronze Award

The City of London has a long association with the trade organisations, known as liveries, operating within its boundaries. London's livery companies offer a community to their members and are involved in charitable-giving, training and networking opportunities. The livery for computing professionals has the rather grand title of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT). WCIT offers an annual prize for students in the capital and this year Vicky Dineshchandra, a 3^rd year Computer Science undergraduate, has won the Bronze award.

Vicky was nominated by the Computer Science department in recognition of the initiatives he introduced in 2015-16 when he was Vice-President of Projects for UCLU Technology Society (TechSoc). In this role he acted as a transition mentor, helping first year undergraduates settle in to their new environment. He also encouraged his fellow students to volunteer for the wide variety of educational events run by TechSoc. One of the biggest successes of the year was HackStart, a day of activities to inspire 14-17 year olds to take a deeper interest in Computer Science through workshops, demos and tech talks; HackStart is now an annual event in the TechSoc calendar.

Vicky fostered an expansion in TechSoc membership numbers by supporting a wide variety of tech-focussed events, hackathons and student-led projects to help develop a cohesive tech community. With increased participation, he was able to co-found the TechSoc Volunteering Crew, (TVC), which now has over 110 members. Vicky produced promotional films showcasing some of the educational materials produced by the UCL Computer Science students and student life here at the Department of Computer Science.

Vicky wants to make it clear that none of these things would have been possible without the support and friendship of fellow TechSoc committee members and colleagues, pictured above.