Eric Lane Award for Projects for Peace and Social Harmony
Each year Clare College invites applications for the Eric Lane Award. The scheme exists to provide financial help for undergraduate or postgraduate students for a project with relevance to the advancement of peace or social harmony.
Barakah Shoubaki is a third-year law student from Southwest London. She spent the 2023 summer vacation in Portugal on an internship at Hala Systems, funded by the Eric Lane award.
How did you hear about the Eric Lane award?
We were sent an email from College with details of how and when to apply for this grant. It’s a scheme that exists to provide financial help for undergraduate or postgraduate students for a project, piece of research, or course of study with relevance to the advancement of peace or social harmony. I was very close to the deadline but managed to get my application approved by my Director of Studies and was delighted to be one of 2 Clare students awarded the grant.
Can you tell us more about Hala Systems?
Hala Systems is a defence technology enterprise focused on developing effective solutions to the toughest challenges in conflict zones. I wanted my placement to be something other than shadowing at a major law firm and found about this company and the internship through a Clare alumna Janaki Tampi (2010).
I was drawn to the company because of its humanitarian focus, their mission is to protect civilians in conflict zones as much as possible. In many locations, civilians were not offered the same protection as the military, with little or no warnings of incoming bombs and missiles, and so they were usually the ones suffering the most in wartime, despite being the least deserving. To better support civilians, Hala created a number of tools, their main one is ‘Sentry,’ a warning system that uses sensors on the ground as well as artificial intelligence to warn civilians of incoming attacks.
Much of the placement was shadowing General Council Janaki Tampi. I would support with general administration tasks, content and policy writing and attend meetings with external councils. I assisted with the drafting of an Internal Data Protection Policy for the company, based on EU GDPR laws, which was great experience and allowed me to put my legal research skills to the test. This was aimed at the employees of the company, informing them how they should handle data whilst working in order to be legally compliant, and how their own data is handled and their rights in relation to that. I also reorganised all of the contracts and non-disclosure agreements between Hala and third parties.
What did you enjoy most about your experience?
I really enjoyed sitting in on all of the important meetings between Janaki and external counsel, including lawyers from the United States and listening to all of the legal advice that they gave on various matters. I also got to meet a lot of the other employees at Hala, who came from all around the world and all sorts of interesting backgrounds, such as the US army and Big Tech companies, and listened to how they ended up working for Hala.
What do you want to do when you graduate, and do you think your experience with Hala Systems has influenced this?
As a law student this experience has been invaluable and has helped me discern more clearly what I enjoy doing and what I would like to do in the future. I also received great advice from employees at Hala, that you first job doesn’t necessarily need to be your dream job, and that gaining life experience in various roles will help me on my future career path. I would definitely like to work for a humanitarian organisation, in a legal role and I’ve learnt that tasks I thought to be mundane were actually very enjoyable in a company setting. This experience has opened my eyes to the variety of legal roles available.
What would you say to other students thinking of applying for the Eric Lane award?
Students should definitely go for it and apply as I really did not expect to get the award at all when I applied. Also, apply for something that is both beneficial to society and will help you with your career moving forward, so that it adds value to your experience.
Built with Shorthand