Five departments · One cell

Pick the room where
you’ll do the work.

DAC isn’t one undifferentiated club. It runs as five departments, each owning a different part of what the cell actually does — from signing companies to shipping research to filling a hall on a Saturday morning. You join one. You can still work across all of them.

Any yearAny programmeCoding optional

Every department has its own job.

Departments exist so work has an owner. Each one has a lead, a remit and its own weekly rhythm — and each needs people who are good at very different things. Read all five before you choose; the one that sounds least like your degree is often the one you’ll enjoy most.

INDUSTRY RELATIONS

The people who get companies to say yes.

Every partner logo on the DAC site started as a cold email somebody wrote. Industry Relations opens those conversations, keeps them warm, and turns them into things students can actually use — tool credits, internship slots, guest sessions, signed MoUs.

  • Research and approach companies, then run the follow-up until there’s an answer
  • Prepare the deck, the ask and the one-pager before a partner meeting
  • Negotiate what students get: seats, credits, mentor hours, hiring pipelines
  • Keep existing partners engaged so year two is easier than year one
Good fit if you’re comfortable being the first to speak, you write a clean email, and a slow reply doesn’t put you off.
partner pipeline
DAC Industry Relations AI tooling partner free student credits Product company internship pipeline Research lab mentor hours Local startup guest sessions outreach → conversation → MoU → something students can use
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

The department that ships the actual thing.

R&D is where a half-formed idea becomes a repository, a demo and — often enough — a paper. Projects run in small teams with a faculty mentor attached, and they’re expected to end in something you can show a stranger, not a folder nobody opens again.

  • Run project teams from problem statement through to a working build
  • Read and present papers so the rest of the cell keeps up with the field
  • Prepare submissions for conferences, journals and student research tracks
  • Maintain the shared codebase, datasets and internal how-to notes
Good fit if you want to build, you’ll happily read something difficult twice, and you’d rather finish one real project than start five.
project pipeline
Problem scoped Prototype built Evaluated benchmarked Published / shipped paper or demo input hidden layers result every project ends in something you can show a stranger
STARTUP & INCUBATION

Where a side project turns into a company.

Some ideas at DAC are too good to stay projects. Startup & Incubation takes them through the unglamorous middle bit — validating the idea, finding the first users, getting the numbers straight and building a pitch that survives questions.

  • Run the intake: which ideas get incubated this semester, and why
  • Pair founders with mentors, and hold them to a real build schedule
  • Pressure-test business models, pricing and the go-to-market plan
  • Prep teams for demo days, grants, accelerators and investor conversations
Good fit if you like the commercial side as much as the technical one — or you already have an idea and want people who’ll argue with it.
incubation ladder
Idea Validate Build Pitch one page first users working MVP demo day idea → company, one honest stage at a time
EVENTS, WORKSHOPS & SEMINARS

The department that fills the room.

DACathon, the speaker sessions, the hands-on workshops, the trips — none of it happens without someone booking the hall, chasing the speaker, testing the projector and making sure people actually turn up. This is the most visible work in the cell, and the most logistical.

  • Plan the semester calendar and own each event end to end
  • Handle venue, budget, permissions, equipment and the run-of-show
  • Brief speakers, build the workshop material, prepare the hands-on tracks
  • Run registrations on the day and collect feedback that changes the next one
Good fit if you’re organised under pressure, you like a checklist, and you want the thing you worked on to happen in front of 200 people.
run of show
Plan Brief speakers Event day Feedback STAGE screen registrations filling · 200+ seats · doors 9:30 book the hall, chase the speaker, test the projector, then do it again
PR MANAGEMENT · SOCIAL MEDIA

How anyone hears about any of it.

A workshop nobody knew about may as well not have happened. PR Management runs everything outward-facing — the Instagram and LinkedIn feeds, the event posters, the recap reels, the press notes — and keeps DAC sounding like one organisation rather than five.

  • Own the content calendar across Instagram, LinkedIn, X and YouTube
  • Design posters, carousels and reels — and shoot the coverage on the day
  • Write announcements, recaps and press notes in DAC’s voice
  • Track what reached people, and drop what didn’t
Good fit if you design, write, shoot or edit — or you simply have taste and opinions about why most college posters are bad.
reach & engagement
1.2k W1 W2 W3 W4 W5 W6 post → reach → turnout what got people in the room, week by week a workshop nobody knew about may as well not have happened

Still not sure which one?

Pick the one you’d want to be in the room for. You choose a department on the application form, it isn’t permanent, and members regularly work across two — an R&D project still needs a poster, and an event still needs a sponsor.

Apply and pick a department Ask us first