12/08/2023
Tonight, SoCS hosted the 2023 SoCS Alumni Awards!
The event recognized the tremendous achievements of outstanding alumni and friends of SoCS.
Our distinguished award winners are:
Young Alumnus of Honour: Nic Durish, BComp '16, MSc '20
Award of Excellence: Adknown Inc. (accepted by co-founder Bill Stagg)
Medal of Achievement: Liz Sandals, BSc '69
Attendees heard many inspirational stories highlighting the wide-ranging impacts that SoCS alumni have had within and beyond our campus, and how those impacts often come full circle.
We heard about how young Liz Sandals, a Math student at the time, took sime of our earliest programming courses and then found her way back to us to become a founding faculty member in the new Department of Computing and Information Sciences (SoCS's origins). Later, during her distinguished and influential career in public service and politics, Liz drew on her CS background to help critically analyze problems and evaluate solutions from a systems perspective - skills she learned debugging code!
We heard how Nic Durish was inspired by the community-engaged scholarship he encountered in his SoCS courses and participating - and winning! - the Feeding 9 Billion hackathon event at Guelph. He brought his passion for using computing skills to tackle real-world problems to Master's, where he worked together with community partners in the remote indigenous community of Rigolet, Nunatsiavut to develop mobile and networking computing solutions to help address digital accessibility.
We heard how a small ad-tech company, AdKnown Inc., became one of our first co-op employers back in 2013. Since then, both AdKnown and SoCS have grown considerably. They have consistently provide quality internship experiences for SoCS students, who in turn have influence their growth and success, with many staying on as full-time staff after graduation. They also generously sponsor two $2,500 annually to SoCS students who demonstrate leadership and community engagement.
Congratulations to our awardees!
Thanks to event organizers, Alumni Affairs & Dev, our presenters and speakers, and to SoCS alumni, faculty, students, and friends for a wonderful event!