GCU’s Ethical Hacking Society win Best Society Event award for national Cyber Security event

The GCU Student’s Association recently held their annual STAR Awards, celebrating the success of students and societies in 14 different award categories.

The award for Best Society Event was given to the Ethical Hacking Society for their highly successful cyber convention “G3C” which took place in October, 2019.

G3C is the West of Scotland’s first student-led Cyber convention, which featured workshops and talks from renowned industry experts.

The team behind the successful event included students Maria Khokhar, Cameron Struthers, Aidan Flood, Oliver Carrigan, Naomi Hollas, Agnieszka Michalska and Cameron Sharp.

4th year Digital Security, Forensics and Ethical Hacking student Maria Khohkar, who was the Lead Organiser for the event, was extremely proud to receive the award alongside the team. She said: “We're absolutely delighted that G3C has won Best society event 2019/2020!

The G3C team and the Department of Cyber security and Networks worked incredibly hard to bring this fantastic event to life, and we're incredibly proud of all that it has achieved.

Thanks to Product Forge, we were able to live stream the event as well. By doing so, we had individuals from India and America Tweeting about our event while they tuned in. The stream from the event can be found here.

Through G3C, we were able to provide work experience to Events, Audio, Media, Digital Design and Digital Security students. As a result, many of our students were able to build up their portfolios and secure placements/internships.”

She added: “By making the event family-friendly and easily accessible, we were able to inspire a more diverse group of people. One of our attendees commented that it was the most females she had seen at a tech conference! Through the support of our sponsors, we were to provide the children with a STEM pack to take away and provided them with fun and engaging activities such as the cyber escape room.
Overall, the event was a huge success, with several attendees asking if there would be another before the day was even over! I highly recommend checking our Twitter @G3CUK for some of the amazing feedback we received.

Given the current situation, this year's G3C was cancelled. However, the Ethical Hacking Society hope to bring back the event in 2021.

For students who have considered creating their own event, I'd recommend they go for it! Not only did the G3C team have an incredible time planning the event, we had fantastic feedback. As a result of our multicultural and interdisciplinary team, we were able to build relationships with students out-with our normal circle, make amazing memories and learn new skills.”

The STAR Awards is an annual event held by GCU Students Association to celebrate students' hard work and dedication throughout the year. For more see here.

To find out more about the Ethical Hacking Society, click here

By Rachael McAlonan
Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media here