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MNET — Monash Nexus for Emerging Technologies

Source-of-truth context file for developing this website. Synthesised from the MNET Notion workspace, the MNET Google Drive (handover documents, draft constitution, 2025 prospectus, METTA-era onboarding docs, MOUs), the legacy site, public channels, the 2024/2025 End of Year Reports to MSTI, and the Monash Student Teams shared drive (see STUDENT-TEAMS.md). Last updated: 2026-07-10 (evening pass: meetings, Mepo, ecosystem, EOY data).

Identity

  • Full name: Monash Nexus for Emerging Technologies (MNET)
  • What it is: A student team under the Monash Student Team Initiative (MSTI), affiliated with the Faculty of Information Technology (and increasingly Engineering). Everything MNET does falls under the simulation technologies umbrella — XR / immersive media, digital twins, quantum computing — while staying deliberately broad: robotics and other up-and-coming technologies are "not out of bounds" (draft constitution). "Emerging" is read as emerging from the digital realm into the physical — hence the tagline.
  • Tagline (primary): "Enter the Digital Frontier" · supporting lines: Access, Upskill, Engage (prospectus) · "Expanding all horizons." · "JOIN US, BUILD THE FUTURE"
  • Home: The Digital Makerspace at Monash Clayton. Team postal address: Building 63, 25 Exhibition Walk, Clayton VIC 3168.
  • Website: https://monashemerging.tech · Repo: github.com/Monash-Emerging-Tech/web-nexus
  • Reach: ~8,000+ combined online student following (2025 prospectus figure).

Mission (canonical copy)

From the 2025 prospectus — the most polished statement of what MNET is; prefer this voice:

"We are the Monash Nexus for Emerging Technologies. We are a student team focused on exposing students to the possibilities offered by XR, Quantum Computing, and more. As a 'nexus', we offer passionate and talented students the opportunity to collaborate with research labs, work in an industry environment, and get their hands on otherwise inaccessible technology. Together, we hope to inspire the next generation of innovators."

Canonical umbrella (Rohan Kalanje, founder — confirmed 2026-07-10): everything MNET does falls under simulation technologies. The "emerging" in the name is the bridge — technologies emerging from the digital realm into the physical — which is exactly the prospectus's "bringing the real into the digital and the digital into the real", and why the tagline is "Enter the Digital Frontier".

Impact framing (prospectus): MNET strives to explore and harness emerging technologies to reshape "what can't be" into "what will be" — "bringing the real into the digital and the digital into the real". MNET serves as a nexus between students, industry, and researchers; "diversity of perspective breeds innovation"; "we model ourselves off the world changers of today to make world changers for tomorrow."

Mepo — the mascot

  • Mepo the platypus, named 15 July 2025 at the leadership handover when founder Rohan Kalanje stepped down as Team Lead. Chosen by team vote; M-E-P-O = one letter from each department (Marketing, Education, Projects, Operations).
  • Why a platypus: the team "represents the transition from the digital ocean to the physical landscape — no better animal than the Aus native platypus" (Publications meeting notes, 21/05/2026). Its oddities mirror MNET's many facets of emerging tech: electrosensing bill, chews with gravel, sweats milk, glows under UV.
  • Appears in Platypus Forest (VR environment, O-Week demo), stickers, and comms. Team tradition: "The Platypus" has a Members-DB entry (created 10/07/2025) with role Team Lead, quote "*Platypus Noises*", email mnet@monash.edu.

Meetings & cadence (how the team runs)

  • MNET Schedule — shared Google Calendar; every member is auto-invited via their Monash email; RSVP Yes/No/Maybe ASAP and leave a note if absent (Welcome Pack).
  • Mega Meets — quarterly, everyone: review the quarter, plan the next, open feedback.
  • Huddles — monthly per department: align member/department goals, Notion progress trackers.
  • Workerbees — 1–2×/week per department/portfolio: hands-on sessions, attendance, blockers.
  • Event planning meetings — per event, all involved members.
  • Leadership All-Hands — ad hoc, leads only, for major decisions.
  • External: ITTA (FIT teams ↔ MSTI coordination hub; MNET/METTA a founding participant, Oct–Nov 2023), MSTI Forums (each trimester, all Eng+IT teams; forum series runs since ≥May 2019), VARS and EmVis/IA Lab meetings, plus supervisor meetings.
  • Discord = day-to-day comms; Notion = meeting notes (Meetings + Lead Meetings DBs).

Ecosystem & governance (the larger Monash picture)

  • HCC: MNET's academic home is FIT's Department of Human-Centred Computing (monash.edu/it/hcc — Monash is top-10 worldwide in HCI by ACM CHI papers). Advisors Prof Tim Dwyer and A/Prof Tom Chandler are both HCC; Keenan Granland (MSM Lab Manager, Faculty of Engineering) is the Engineering-side staff partner.
  • EmVis: within HCC, the Embodied Visualisation group (led by Tim Dwyer; runs the Immersive Analytics Lab) — "bringing data out of computers and into the world around us". Joint work: Globes App (Apple Vision Pro, with Stanford University, David Rumsey Map Collection; demoed to the Chancellor + Education Ministers of Australia and India at the Monash Innovation Precinct; shown at SXSW Sydney), Bali AVP (Balinese temple digital heritage with the Indonesian government, Gaussian splatting), BikeVR, annual EmVis showcase (23/10/2025, ~25 attendees).
  • GIM: FIT's Games and Immersive Media major/minors (3D, game design, mocap/character animation, VR/AR — monash.edu/it/gim-showcase). GIM students ≈ a fifth of MNET's IT-major members (19.4% in 2025); MNET gives them portfolio projects and showcases (e.g. BLAST 3D at Monash College, attended by GIM professors).
  • MSTI: MNET reports an End of Year Report each December (MSTI template: demographics, operations, events, social data, finances, next-year funding). Funding: 2024 $4,000 (100% MSTI); 2025 $6,500 MSTI + $2,150 FIT (~$8,650 spent); released in tranches (2025: $1,600 Feb + $2,400 if spent by 01/09). Governance details: STUDENT-TEAMS.md.
  • Growth (EOY data): 2024 — 38 members (52→10 S1 rebuild recruitment, 182→20 S2), website 26k visits after mid-year launch. 2025 — ~70 active (roster ~97; 96+40 apps R1, 59+8 R2), 43.3% international, Instagram 135→642, website ~41k unique visitors, 20+ stakeholders (Microsoft, Telstra, EY, Capgemini, HPE, Blackmagic, 360 Productions, Engineers Australia, ANSTO, CrowdStrike, XENON, Macquarie Bank, Databricks, Altair, Ventia, MindFlight7, Meta, Moderna…).

Brand

Notion integration reference

  • Portfolios DB — database id 6c76fb82-07b2-4915-814f-5a57bd4b06b4, data source a916ca0f-0797-4d7f-8eb0-fde670e6142d. Key properties: Project name (title), One Liner, Description, Summary, Department (multi), Project Type (3D/VR/Digital Twin/ Prototyping/Data Visualisation), Tech Used, Status, Web Status (Active/Inactive — publish-to-website flag), GitHub Repository, Figma Link, Canva Link, Dates, Collaborator, Priority, Portfolio Lead(s), Assignee(s).
  • Members DB — names, roles, quotes, departments, icons, LinkedIn URLs; covers synced via scripts/fetch-notion-covers.js → public/img/members/{page-id}.jpg.
  • Env vars (sample.env): NOTION_API_KEY, NOTION_PORTFOLIOS_DB_ID, NOTION_MEMBERS_DB_ID; all fetchers fail soft to DUMMY_ data when unset.
  • Notion hubs: "Nexus Command Centre" (2511d893-3ee3-8003-9e6f-cb664aed0bf2), "Web Redesign" brief (1e91d893-3ee3-8085-9004-dd6e6df47f53).

Internal references (do not publish on the site)

Deeper operational detail (finance pipelines, MOU templates, recruitment rubrics, access transfer processes) lives in the Google Drive Team Lead's Folder → Executives Folder (Handover, Supervisor Information, Reporting) and the DRAFT MNET Constitution doc. The repo's working draft is docs/constitution/MNET-Constitution-DRAFT.docx (v0.4, 10 July 2026 — merges the two parallel 10-July drafts: the handover-docs consolidation (v0.3: Mepo, meetings, code of conduct, leadership terms, sponsorship pipeline, honour roll) plus the Student Teams Procedure Ver 2 governance article, CPD/ENG4802, MNET Schedule norms, funding figures and stakeholder record. Regenerate via docx-js script, don't hand-edit XML; open questions remain under Article 14 (ratification, voting model, quorum). EOY report decks: 2024 1fvf6qTAZ6j6H4pSYeGDLgOsWOzDz55ObTeT3RafOmQA, 2025 1sbHAjhBmuhoLZiYOqS7Z-pKrqYveLOfKGVRoTtknMPk (Google Slides). This file intentionally omits staff contact details and finance codes — the repo is public.