1st Meeting - February 14th

[Michela]

Dear All,

Thank you to all of you who came to our first meeting yesterday and for those who couldn't make it, we look forward to meeting you soon!

I think overall we had a very good vibe going and genuine interest in moving this group forward. Below I've outlined the main points of our discussion and of course, welcome any comments and further suggestions.

1. Meeting Times

I think generally we agreed to start off with bi-monthly meetings. Of course, during exam and essay periods, we can cut it down to once a month. Most of us will be around this summer, so I think we will be continuing at least until the end of this year. We're probably going to continue meeting either on weekday evenings and / or the odd weekend, since that seemed to be the preference.

2. Meeting Place

It might be interesting if we varied the locations of our meetings. we can have the first few at King's and then perhaps rotate and have them in the unis of other members (LSE, UCL, Queen Mary, etc).

3. Meeting Structure

The idea was put forward to have one member present a topic of his choice during each meeting (either a group lead discussion or presentation, etc.). So far, the general areas of interest discussed were:

- Viruses, Biometric data, RFID
- Cyberwarfare, Cyberarms Treaty
- Cyberattacks (Stuxnet)
- Industrial Espionnage
- Cybercrime (financial aspects)
- Data Protection / Privacy legislation
- Intellectual Property v Open Source / Climate Change
- Digital Forensics
- Mobile Devices

Of course, this is just a start and very general overview and we will further develop and add topics as we have more meetings.

Ahmed volunteered to start off the next meeting and lead the discussion on perhaps viruses! To be confirmed ...

4. Meeting Tools

We are going to try and see if we can get Kings to let us host a page on their site for our group. Sharepoint might be an interesting option for us. I also like the idea of a forum, where we can have both private and public areas. These would include perhaps (off the top of my head):

- Info about ourselves, our work, articles we've published, presentations we've made and would like to share (potentially private area)
- Info about publicly available online links, journals of interest, conferences, events
- An area to discuss different topics related to each meeting, where the discussion leader can put up information relevant to the discussion.

Etc.

5. Long term plans

In the very long run, I was thinking we can eventually think about putting together a small inter-collegiate conference where we can present a topic of our choice to other students. Perhaps inviting a few guest speakers (professors, or other industry stakeholders). It could be a good networking opportunity. Also, I was thinking, maybe we can get some funding from Kings (or even the UN) to publish something as a group. It could be interesting to have an academic publication specifically centered on these topics. Anyway, these are long term plans, so nothing is set in stone and everything is open to discussion.


Right, that about wraps it up! I am quite excited about this new group and really looking forward to our future meetings. In the meantime, feel free to think of a name for our group and make any suggestions. Ahmed and I will keep in touch about setting up an online portal for us. Hopefully we will get that sorted soon. I think I will put forward a new date for our next meeting: Thursday March 3rd at around 6pm at Kings again (I wont be able to make it before that date).