Each year, our third year students come together in small teams to collaborate on a group assignment as part of the project module.
The project module provides an authentic experience of working to a client brief, similar to what students would experience on work placements.
Projects typically involve software development or system configuration as their central activity with students of project management or design-oriented subjects providing specialist input.
Previous projects have involved application development for desktop, web and mobile platforms, network installation and configuration activities and the development of interactive media. 
Due to the popularity and fantastic outputs of some of the projects, the School introduced the Group Projects Awards in 2018, to celebrate students’ success and reward the groups who have demonstrated excellent teamwork and produced an outstanding project outcome.
Computershare sponsored the 2019 award, with the ceremony held at their head office in central Edinburgh.
The 2019 winning team was Improvisor whose project focused on developing an app for presenters which used voice recognition to retrieve appropriate visual resources on the fly.
Zsolt Varga, one of the Improvisor programming team reflecting on their experience said:
“The group project has been an experience none of our team initially expected. Partly thanks to luck, but mostly thanks to the help of the early “recruitment process”, we ended up with a very hard-working team, which paid off in the end! The best part of the whole experience was seeing a finished product come into existence with every meeting, and getting recognition for our hard work. It is definitely one of the most rewarding modules so far.
The partnership with Computershare was a great opportunity to meet new people, and being able to show off skills past the walls of the University made the experience much more exciting than a simple submission. Future teams; definitely try to work for a best result and rather than focusing on each other, focus on your common goal!
I’d like to thank Edinburgh Napier and Brian Davison again for one of my most exciting experiences at the university so far.”
Project briefs for this year’s students are currently being sought: if you have a back-burner project or a proof-of-concept that our students could develop for you, please post the details at Edinburgh Napier Projects Exchange or contact Brian Davison
With special thanks to Computershare for sponsoring the 2019 and 2020 awards.
Computershare is a world leader in financial administration, underpinned by technology. They are a down to earth Aussie company that values openness, directness and hard work.
Their Global Technology Centre brings more than 300 high-quality tech jobs to Edinburgh to support the work of 16,000 global employees. Computershare offers apprentices, graduates and technology professionals the potential for a career where they can interact with colleagues across the world.