JCC Ad Astra Per Aspera: Centek
After the Calamity left humanity's homeworld overpopulated and stripped of resources, the Central Technologies Corporation saw an opportunity that others saw as a catastrophe. While governments fumbled and societies collapsed, Centek's board of directors made a calculated investment in humanity's future: pack their best minds into seed ships and claim a new world built on corporate efficiency.
Now, light-years from Earth's regulatory chaos, Centek has arrived at Alpha Centauri with a clear mission: innovation, development, and efficiency. Free from the bureaucratic shackles that held them back on Old Earth, they envision a world where technological progress drives civilization forward, and corporate leadership ensures optimal resource allocation. After all, if Earth's governments had just let them work, maybe there wouldn't have been a Calamity in the first place.
But Centek's corporate utopia faces two significant obstacles. First, their success has bred internal competition. Each subdivision has grand plans for Alpha Centauri, which aren't always compatible. More pressingly, they weren't alone in their exodus. The Dominion of Solace beat them to the best real estate, claiming the resource-rich southern territories with their environmental protectionist agenda. Centek arrived with superior technology and military capabilities, but their attempts to negotiate favorable terms led to a costly impasse.
The committee begins as both factions lick their wounds from recent conflicts. Centek knows they have the industrial expertise to build the civilization humanity deserves, but only if they can secure the resources they need and convince their new neighbors that progress requires pragmatism, not primitive environmentalism.
Viren Maira
Chair
Viren is a fourth-year in the College studying Biology and Public Policy and is on the pre-med track. He is from the northern suburbs of Chicago, although he spent much of his childhood in New York and thus naturally believes thin-crust pizza is superior to deep dish. Prior to chairing this JCC, he chaired Do You Hear The People Sing? The June Rebellion, 1832, at ChoMUN XXVIII, and chaired The Kasparov Gambit: The International Chess Federation, 1993 at ChoMUN XXVII. He also served as an assistant chair on The Saffron Resurrection: The Maratha Confederacy, 1761 at ChoMUN XXVI.
Outside of ChoMUN, he participates in MUNUC, UChicago’s high school MUN conference, where he serves as the Chief Operating Officer. He also researches in an immunology lab on campus, volunteers for a few hospitals on the South Side, and tutors children at a Hyde Park elementary school. In his free time, you can see him eating through Chicago with friends, playing poker, and watching his favorite sports teams (go Cowboys and Rockets).
Viren can’t wait to be your chair at ChoMUN XXIX! If you have any questions about the committee or would like to just say hi, you can reach Viren at virenmaira@uchicago.edu.
Elliott Husseman
Crisis Director
Elliott is a third-year studying Archaeology and Economics, and was lured away from his hometown of San Diego, California by the promise of “seasonal weather.” He will still, however, defend In-N-Out to the very last as the single greatest burger joint known to mankind, and does not entertain any opinions to the contrary. His previous stints at ChoMUN have included serving as Assistant Chair for ChoMUN XXVII’s How The Sausage Gets Made: Armour and Company, 1906, as well as Crisis Director for ChoMUN XXVIII’s Do You Hear The People Sing: June Rebellion, 1832.
Beyond ChoMUN, Elliott serves as Vice President of the U of C Model UN team. (Kant, Kant, Kant!) On the rare occasions when he’s not thinking about Model United Nations, he’s liable to be found curled up with a good book and a cup of tea, rewatching Battlestar Galactica or Vertigo for the umpteenth time, or deep in a game of Civilization. He harbors a soft spot for both big band jazz and Puccini’s opera, and a perennial affinity for all things jelly bean related.
Elliott is super excited to be your Crisis Director at ChoMUN XXIX! For questions, comments, concerns, (or any good arrangements of Chick Corea’s Spain), please don’t hesitate to reach out at ehusseman@uchicago.edu.
Will Foster
Coordinating CRISIS DIRECTOR
William is a fourth-year in the College studying Political Science and Economics. He hails from the small town of Durham, Connecticut, where his next-door neighbors are twenty-three Jersey cows. He served as an Assistant Chair at ChoMUN XXVI on the committee It’s a Whole New World: Board of Disney Directors, 2012, and was a Crisis Director for The Kasparov Gambit: The International Chess Federation, 1993 at ChoMUN XXVII and Do You Hear the People Sing? The June Rebellion, 1832, at ChoMUN XXVIII.
He is also a member of UChicago’s competitive Model UN team and competes on UChicago’s 28-time national champion quiz bowl team. William has competed on five JCCs (six if you count the LAMUN Ad-Hoc JCC), so he is excited to show the rest of the circuit how it’s done.
William is excited to be your CCD! If you have any questions, you can reach William at williamf@uchicago.edu.
Secretariat oversight:
Lulu Deluca, Under-secretary-general