Our History
There are two versions of CUSEC's history. There is the version we like to tell people and then their is the truth. Let's start off with the version we like to tell people.
CUSEC's Glorious History
In 2001, on a dark and gloomy night, a small group of passionate software engineering students from Concordia University held, a private meeting on the top floor of one of Montreal's tallest buildings. Their purpose: to scheme about the future of software engineering students' education in Canada.
Not much is known of the meeting. Everyone who attended the meeting was sworn to secrecy and all the notes that were taken were burned. What is known though, is that at the end of the meeting, it was decided that starting in 2002, an annual conference would be held. This conference would bring the most passionate software engineering students from across Canada together under one roof, to listen and learn from the smartest and the greatest software engineers the world has ever seen.
During the private meeting nothing was ever mentioned about the great events around the conference including the grueling yet entertaining software engineering competition, the very popular cookies & milk (popular only to me I am starting to think), and our very successful career fair. Neither were all the amazing new friends and relationships you would forge over the best three days of your school year ever mentioned. And I guarantee you nothing was ever mentioned about the amazing parties held in John's suite until the wee hours of the morning where the attendees got the opportunity to play poker and exchange horror stories with some of our most famous keynote presenters.
The Unfortunate (I Personally Think Fortunate) Truth About CUSEC's History
An undergraduate student in 2001, who will remain nameless, attended a university technology conference as a head delegate for Concordia University. He was extremely excited to go but after the second day he found himself discouraged. It was really nice for him to get the opportunity to meet with some of the brightest CEOs in business today but what he really wanted to do was meet with people he aspired to become. He wanted to meet the Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, Kent Beck, Kathy Sierra and Joel Spolsky's of the world.
He foolishly thought it couldn't be that hard to organize a University conference that catered to people who were looking for the same things as him in a conference. He mentioned his idea to a couple people, people got excited about the idea of starting a conference, the founding team that brought to you CUSEC 2002 was formed and the rest is as they say history.
A Little Bit From Column A, a Little Bit From Column B
Both stories have a lot of truth to them, that is if the 7th floor of Concordia University's main building was both the top floor of the building and the tallest building in Montreal. But If I remember correctly it was a dark night. But I digress…
Either way CUSEC has become what it is today because of Canadian students passion for software engineering. And nothing beats the feeling of following your passion.
See you at CUSEC my friends!