GCU students to host successful G3C conference for the second time after two year break
GCU’s Ethical Hacking Society are about to host their second G3C conference, after taking a two year break due the pandemic.
G3C is Scotland’s first student-lead cyber security conference; aiming to bring together industry professionals, students and enthusiasts to share ideas, knowledge, and experience.
Students from the Ethical Hacking Society hosted the first conference in 2019, which saw hundreds of people travel to GCU to engage with and celebrate the world of cyber security.
As well as an opportunity for people to broaden their network, guests are treated to talks from industry speakers who represent different areas of the growing cyber security industry.
This year, G3C is set to take place on the 5th-6th of November and Ethical Hacking Society President, Dominik Hanlon, is looking forward to welcoming guests to the conference after a two-year break.
Dominik explained: “I’m the President of the Ethical Hacking Society, so I’ve taken on the role as leader of all of the organization behind G3C. We had the idea to get G3C up and running again, because we couldn’t in the previous year due to COVID.
It made us focus more on the society, but this year we decided to bring back G3C and use it as a way of teaching people about cyber security. The idea is to bring everyone together to learn, share ideas and build a community around it.”
Dominik, alongside the team behind G3C, understands the complexity of cyber security and wants to use the conference to teach people all about it. He said: “The main aim of G3C is to educate people about cyber security. The term “cyber security” is a very broad topic, so the conference allows guests to come and showcase what their specific focus is in the industry.
There’s different areas within cyber security; there’s physical penetration testing, lock-picking, etc. There’s also the other side of cyber security which might involve more office based work where they would analyse data, so there’s a lot of sides to it which we want to try and show during G3C.”
He added: “We want to invite people from these different areas and let them discuss and share ideas which is something we have really leaned into for this year’s G3C. We have guests that come from very cutting-edge, niche industries; for example, the Quantam Computing Simulation Hub which is the largest Quantam Computing Emulation Hub in the UK.
It sounds complicated, but basically it’s something that’s not considered a lot in cyber security but it’s the next big step that will change everything. We wanted to bring them in to share their ideas and tell people what to expect over the next decade or so.”
With the conference quickly approaching, Dominik has enjoyed the organising experience – despite the stresses that come with large-scale events. He said: “It’s simultaneously great and stressful! It’s really cool to be a part of, but there is also that pressure of making sure everything goes well.
It’s been a really interesting experience, doing things like getting to travel around the UK to speak with people to invite them to G3C – it’s how we got a lot of our sponsors, actually. I’ve really enjoyed getting to meet people and broaden my network.
Its’ been very much a team effort in terms of organising G3C. Although everyone has their set role, we have all been pitching in and helping with whatever we can to make sure everything is running properly.”
Find out about G3C on their website
By Rachael McAlonan
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