Meet the Kwantlen IT Club
The new club was approved at a KSA executive meeting last month and aims to connect students to industry professionals
Kwantlen IT members from left to right: Treasurer Aryan Bansal, President Manvinder Rayat, Vice-President Amandeep Sura, Social Media Manager Harratan Singh Maan. (Kyler Emerson)
The Kwantlen Information Technology Club was approved at the Kwantlen Student Association’s Sept. 16 executive meeting.
The purpose of the club is to organize technology career conferences and networking events to establish “a direct connection between industry experts and students to provide them with industry exposure,” according to the club’s constitution provided to The Runner. It will also offer students programming events and meetings with Kwantlen Polytechnic University alumni.
The idea of the club is to provide KPU students with the exposure of the current IT industry, says the club’s President Mavinder Rayat.
“We want to establish a connecting bridge between what the industry has to offer to the recently graduating KPU students.”
Rayat says the club originated from several ideas that Vice-President Amandeep Kaur Sura, Treasurer Aryan Bansal, and Rayat discussed in their INFO 1113 class. He says they wanted to start something that would help students in the same field connect to “under one roof.”
“Most of us are first year students and we don’t know much about how KPU or the KSA [operates],” Rayat says. “Overall it took us around five months, from an idea of a club to an actual club under the KSA.”
Currently, the club has several coding events and an information session about the IT industry planned for students for the remainder of the fall semester.
“Our basic concern would be [discussing] the political aspect of how [the industry] would be evolving our tech industry here in Vancouver, and providing students with insights about how politics are affecting the IT industry,” Rayat says.
A website is under development for the Kwantlen IT Club, and is expected to be completed by the end of October, but they do have a newsletter for their members.
“[The] newsletter provides our members with the daily day-to-day happenings of the IT industry in Vancouver, Metro Vancouver, and across Canada. That newsletter would include all the major technological advancements, innovations, and inventions or anything relating to coding languages,” Rayat says.
“We noticed that our community here in IT and computer science consists of, what we say, a four wall structure. [Students] are lacking enough exposure to land them a job in the industry,” he says.
Rayat added that he would like the club to help KPU students network around the IT industry in Vancouver and provide them the skills needed for their future careers in the industry.
The Kwantlen IT Club has social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Students can also reach the club at kpuitclub@gmail.com.
