CCSS Election for 2021-2022

Written By: Adam Payzant

The CCSS Elections for 2021-2022 have begun! We’re excited to announce that we have 15 candidates running for positions on the board of directors.

The Candidates are:

President:

  • Sarah Ali
  • William So

Vice President:

  • Ayodeji Akinbile
  • Erica Li
  • Malcolm Smith

Director of Finance:

  • Benjamin Karstad
  • Victor Li

Director of Academics:

  • Aaditya (Adi) Chopra
  • Matthew MacRae-Bovell
  • Robert Babaev

Director of Social:

  • Jerry Liu
  • Milo Goodfellow
  • Veronica Yung

Director of Community:

  • Patrick Ene
  • Zara Ali

The Campaign Platforms:

Sarah Ali - President

I’m currently serving as a Communications Officer on the Board of Directors and I’m excited to have a chance to lead the new board into the future of the CCSS for the next academic year! As President, I plan to continue everything that made this year so great for us (Dev Club, tech talks, virtual game nights, Discord engagement, etc.) as well as bring a few new ideas to the table:

Goals as President:

  1. Launching an official CCSS mentorship program to connect students with passionate upper years and alumni that can support them through their academic and career journey with emphasis on passing forward technical expertise
  2. Running our very own hackathon that encourages students, especially beginners, to venture out of their comfort zone and try out completely new technologies and ideas
  3. Continuing and expanding the CCSS Digital Magazine I founded to encourage and highlight students’ work and achievements in technology and outside of it
  4. Increased collaboration with other tech clubs at Carleton for events and initiatives to provide students with a giant network of societies and resources they can make use of
  5. Raising interest in adjacent fields to software development such as design, product/project management, systems analysis, etc. through events and discussion

Further ideas for the Board:

  1. Building on weekly Dev Club to become more goal-oriented with progress tracking, check-ins, WIP demoes and peer collaboration
  2. More academic events to support students technically during the job search (group LeetCoding, mock technical interviews, etc.)
  3. Increased advocacy and awareness for students with disabilities through educational talks and open discussions

William So - President

I am running for re-election as the President of the CCSS. As your former First-Year Representative, VP Social, and current President, I have extensive experience with the society - voicing student concerns to the School of Computer Science, organizing successful student events, orchestrating renovations to the CCSS student lounge, bringing the CCSS fully online during the pandemic, and leading the CCSS executive team to bring about the society's plentiful and diversifying initiatives.

Returning for a third presidential term would allow me to continue delivering on the promises I have made to the society, while simultaneously pursuing new strategies to further increase student engagement as well as establishing better foundations on which future iterations of the Board of Directors may thrive. Under my leadership, I will enact a customized plan to collaborate with each of the executive members to ensure our success on all fronts is continued.

  • In the past, the society's output has often been limited due to problems with time management and a lack of effective communication within the executive team. If elected, I will work with the Vice President to focus on implementing teambuilding initiatives and effective collaboration techniques in order to combat these issues at the source.
  • The CCSS has a history of being rather frugal with its expenses. However, as the society continues to grow, more and more spending options have become feasible. If elected, I will work with the Director of Finance to allocate funds towards subsidizing such expenses as conference tickets, larger-scale CCSS-run initiatives for students, high-profile guest speakers, and CCSS merchandise.
  • One of the greatest benefits to students of the CCSS is its potential for academic initiatives and learning outside of the classroom. This year, we saw a large increase in both the quality and quantity of our academic events. I plan to continue that trajectory alongside the Director of Academics, with plans to bring about larger-scale learning opportunities such as coding competitions, hackathons, and guest speaker panels, while also expanding our Dev Club.
  • The events of 2020 threw us all for a loop, but the CCSS was able to continue operations online with larger engagement numbers than we have had in years. As we approach the eventual return to in-person operations, I will work with the Director of Social to ensure that we can continue to provide frequent social opportunities both online and in-person, so that students may always have a way to engage with our community.
  • In the past few years, the CCSS has made great progress in building a sense of community within which all society members feel safe and included. If elected, I would like to extend our community's reach beyond the limits of our membership, and collaborate with the Director of Community to ensure that our society is not only welcoming to everyone in CS, but also cooperates with other student groups to reach broader audiences and help one another grow and learn.

Vote William So! You can contact me by email via william.so@ccss.carleton.ca if you have any questions.

Ayodeji Akinbile - Vice-President

I am interested in seeing how I can make a change in the CCSS by making sure more people are knowledgeable about what the CCSS is and what it does and to bring people together to share ideas, projects or just meet like minded people.

Erica Li - Vice-President

I want to run for the CCSS Board of Directors because the CCSS has provided an awesome community for me during an otherwise isolating time. I want to give back to my friends and this community by directly playing a role in it. I am running for the role of vice-president because I am conscientious, organized, and dedicated. I am friendly and approachable, but also serious when I need to be! If I am elected, I will fulfill all my duties as vice president. I will also lend a helping hand to the other CCSS officers, so that they can run events and hold meetings as smoothly as possible. I will also help resolve conflict if it ever arises. I believe that I will be a good role model for younger students due to my strong work ethic, positive attitude and big heart!

Malcolm Smith - Vice-President

If elected, I will continue to strive for excellence as a board member of the CCSS. If you haven’t heard of me before, I’ll give a quick recap. My name is Malcolm, currently a 2nd, going into 3rd year BCS Honours student, and I have been involved with the CCSS since my first week of freshman year. I have loved my experience working as first year rep, and as director social this year. With in person activities resuming at some point next year, it is my priority to get as many people involved as possible. As vice president, I would be working alongside the Board of Directors to help achieve this goal. My two years of prior experience with the CCSS will be a great aid to the next generation of the society, as the main responsibility of the vice president is to help manage the internal affairs of the board. I strive to help all society members understand the intricacies of running the society and provide easy access for discussion. I love hearing from fellow students about their ideas and concerns about the society and the computer science program at Carleton University. Thanks!

Benjamin Karstad - Director of Finance

This will be my third year running for Director of Finance. I have much experience in personal finances, as well as the finances of the CCSS. In my previous two terms, I learned a lot about the needs of the CCSS, and I hope to graduate next year knowing I have left a strong foundation for the treasurers of the future. Some of my goals for this year are to:

  • Reinforce and document the process for reimbursing students and receiving funding from the SCS.
  • Improve ease of maintaining society accounts by moving away from spreadsheets to a more robust accounting software.
  • Promote the importance of the treasurer role, as well as transparency and accountability.

I know that most students do not share the passion for personal finances that I do. In accomplishing these goals, I hope to secure the financial future of the CCSS by making sure that it is as straightforward and un-complicated as possible.

Victor Li - Director of Finance

Hey!! My name is Victor Li and I’m one of the candidates running for the Director of Finance. In this position, I will manage CCSS funds to give more to the students. With this role I can allocate funds towards merchandise and social events, so that as computer science students, we can represent the community that we cherish. I’m planning to set up a system of where CCSS merchandise can be purchased through the platform Google Forms. With this, the process of buying and distributing merchandise can be made discrete and easy. I also promise to collaborate with the Director of Social where we use CCSS funds for more ambitious events. The challenge of managing budgets and money can be complicated, but from the knowledge I've gained through past administrative experience, I am willing to take on that challenge.

Aaditya (Adi) Chopra - Director of Academics

When I virtually entered Carleton University, I really enjoyed taking part in the CCSS Week of Awesome activities. It really helped me feel welcome to the program and helped me meet new people and make new friends, which would have been difficult for me otherwise, especially with school being fully virtual. I would love to take part in helping computer science students at Carleton feel more welcome and included into the community, but also show them that they have a support channel available to them.

Not only is making new friends difficult in an online environment, learning in this kind of environment is also very difficult. If elected, I want to alleviate some of the stress that comes with online learning. I want to make more resources available to computer science students, to help them as much as I can in terms of learning virtually, but also just in making their undergraduate experience a pleasant one, regardless of the environment they are learning in. If elected I would:

  • organize career development type of workshops (such as interview practice workshops or resume writing workshops);
  • hold Game Jams and/or hackathons;
  • hold study/cram session for different classes;
  • compile resources to help with learning;
  • find fun and interactive ways for students to concretize the knowledge that they gain from their classes and also to learn new things; and
  • find many other ways to help reduce the stress that comes with being a student.

Matthew MacRae-Bovell - Director of Academics

Hey There, I'm Matthew! I’m a three-time elected CCSS executive and have previously hosted dozens of events and initiatives on behalf of the society. If elected, I will organize a variety of initiatives that will improve resource accessibility, create opportunities, and help our members achieve academic success. If you’re interested in learning more about my platform, please visit my campaign website: ccss.matthewmacraebovell.com

  1. More Discrete Math Resources ✏️

    If elected, I will continue to further develop the COMP 2804 exercise website Discretemath.ca. Discretemath.ca is a web app used by hundreds of Carleton students that lets you virtually take past evaluations from COMP 2804. I am the primary software developer on this project and if re-elected, I plan to continue its development with the addition of new resources.

  2. More Industry Presentations and Info Sessions 💡

    Next year, I will organize workshops on industry topics like preparing for interviews and improving your resume. I will also continue to host presentations I’ve previously organized such as “Finding your first internship”, incoming student FAQs, and webinars on course selection.

  3. More Tech Talk Variety 🎉

    This semester I successfully organized the society’s consistent schedule of bi-weekly tech talks. If elected, I will maintain this schedule while also bringing in speakers with a wider variety of presentation topics.

  4. A Brand New Website 💻

    With my experience as a web developer and as the current maintainer of the CCSS website, I will create a brand new website to better support all of our online resources such as our blog, digital magazine, and several of the other ideas I will further describe below.

  5. Internship & Scholarship Resources 💼

    As part of the website redesign, I will introduce internship and scholarship listing pages (similar to what you would find on linkedin or indeed) curated for Carleton’s computer science students.

  6. Carleton Computer Science News & Events Feed 📡

    As part of the website redesign, I will develop a news feed that includes events, initiatives, and projects from CS students and all CS related Carleton organizations. This will make it significantly less difficult for students to keep track of everything happening in Carleton’s CS community.

  7. Mentorship/Tutorship for Side Projects 🎓

    This initiative will work by listing volunteer student mentors on our website with descriptions of their expertise and skill sets. Students will have the opportunity to reach out to these mentors for help on side projects and course material.

  8. Open Source Development Initiative ⚒️

    I will create development tasks for students on our open source development projects such as our website and Discretemath.ca.

  9. More Code Challenge Events 🗓️

    I will host more events similar to last September’s CCSS Daily Code Challenge. I was one of the organizers behind this event and would like to host another next year.

  10. Continuing Dev Club 🛠️

    I will continue hosting Dev Club and reformat the meetings to systematically encourage students to make consistent progress on their projects.

Robert Babaev - Director of Academics

University is the best time to learn something new, and having a diverse array of resources and opportunities is the best way to do that. I have always been passionate about learning about technology, and I want to share that passion and help students hit the ground running in the industry. If elected, I would push for more talks, events, and resources regarding skills currently valuable in the industry of computer science to be available to students in the CCSS. Such skills might include concurrent programming, AI, cloud technology, security, and containers/virtualization, in addition to more fundamental skills such as database management and object-oriented design. If possible, I would also implement monthly themes of learning, where each month would focus on a different topic of computer science.

Patrick Ene - Director of Community

Being a member of the CCSS and seeing the impact the club and its directors has had on the student experience, especially during these unprecedented times, spurred me on to run for a position on the Board of Directors. I want to be able to create an enjoyable and friendly computer science community the way the incumbent Board of Directors have been able to.

If elected as the Director of Community, I plan on advocating for the marginalized among us to promote a welcoming space for everyone to be a part of. Being an international black student myself, inclusion is very important to me and being the Community Director would allow me to channel my passion directly into the society.

So as simple as it may be, my vision for the position is simply based on consideration for the few as well as for the many when planning and facilitating events and such.

Zara Ali - Director of Community

Hello! I'm Zara Ali. After having experience as a First-Year Representative this year, I’ve identified a number of things within the CCSS community that I’d love to continue to see happen as well as would like to initiate:

  • Working with the current board to make CS students more aware of the resources available to them, whether they come from the CCSS or not:

    • awareness of who can book an appointment with the PMC to discuss registering for accommodations.
    • active recognition of student fatigue and isolation, especially should the coming semesters continue to be online.
    • diversity in events so every student feels like there is something they can attend.
  • Fostering an approachable environment for newcomers to the CCSS, whether they are first-years or upper years engaging for the first time at events, Dev Club, or in conversation within the Discord server.

  • Making sure student feedback for the CCSS is heard by continuing to put out event feedback forms, as well as creating a way to give anonymous suggestions for what students would like to see happen.

    • in addition, continuing to advertise the CCSS volunteer initiative should students want to get involved first-hand within the CCSS.
  • Creating more opportunities for events with different CS communities and clubs at Carleton (WICS, Technolgap, Blueprint, etc.) such as speed-friending, game tournaments, and workshops.
  • Listening to the members of the society and working with the board to give suggestions and feedback to the SCS, especially on matters of inclusion.

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