Our Campus Ambassador Program
The people representing nwPlus at schools across North America.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shunted our hackathons online. While the pandemic placed constraints on what we could offer at our hackathon and events, it removed a larger barrier to attendance — travel. Without the need to travel to the UBC Vancouver campus, nwPlus became more accessible to students than ever before. For our first online hackathon, HackCamp 2020, we received registrations from 146 different schools in almost every continent in the world. The surge in participation by students from other schools was helped by the efforts of our team of Campus Ambassadors.
The nwPlus Campus Ambassador Program (CAP) was launched in 2019 with 5 ambassadors to reach out to different schools across the lower mainland of British Columbia. CAP, now in its beta version, has expanded to include 12 ambassadors from schools across North America. Our Campus Ambassadors are integral to our outreach to students outside of UBC and help shape the hacker experience at our hackathons. This article showcases some of our ambassadors in schools in the Lower Mainland and in the United States.
Harsha
University of Texas, Dallas | Math + CS
Harsha’s first interaction with the nwPlus team was during Hackcon 2019. Throughout that year he saw the impact that nwPlus had on students and was inspired by our efforts to empower the hacker community. Harsha attended nwHacks 2020 and notes that it was “one of the most enjoyable hackathons that [he had] attended. He joined the Campus Ambassador Program to capitalize on an opportunity to make an impact that stretched beyond his own university and make a global difference. Aside from nwPlus, Harsha is involved with the Association for Computing Machinery at UTD and is currently working on his real-time virtual workshop tool designed to deliver workshop content virtually to students and allow for host analytics to simplify virtual student engagement.
Lovely
Simon Fraser University, Surrey| School of Interactive Arts & Technology
Lovely was first introduced to nwPlus in high school as a volunteer at our hackathons. She was drawn to the passion of the hackers while they participated in everything from last-minute fixes on their projects to cup-stacking competitions. Aside from inspiring hackers from SFU to participate at nwPlus events including a few project ideas of her own targeted at helping the elderly, Lovely also enjoys logging a few hours of Valorant occasionally.
Dominic
University of California, Santa Cruz | Information Systems
After attending HackCamp 2020, Dominic fell in love with the friendly community, the inclusiveness at our workshops, and our fundamentally progressive programming. Dominic joined CAP to spread nwPlus events to students and provide them with an opportunity to join an inclusive and welcoming environment that promotes learning. Aside from nwPlus, Dominic prides himself to be a big coffee and espresso nerd, and is learning to use Mapbox to build a California-based coffee review blog.
You have had a chance to meet some of the faces representing nwPlus in their own schools but we are always looking to expand! The Campus Ambassador Program is constantly looking for students across the world to help promote nwPlus to their campus community and further our mission of providing a stepping stone for tech students across the world. Follow us on our socials to keep an eye out for the next time we are accepting new applicants.
