A Strathclyde University student has been named Young Software Engineer of the Year for a project that seeks to more closely control how companies use peoples’ data.

The 35^th annual Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards took place in a ceremony in Edinburgh, hosted by Scotland’s tech trade body ScotlandIS following its ScotSoft conference.

Ben Macdonald took the top prize home for his project that specialised in data protection. Inspired by Tim Berners-Lee, his project re-thinks authentication protocols, a critical consideration of tech that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.

Originally from Ayrshire, Ben’s journey into Computing Science began at Ayrshire College, where he completed an HNC in computer games development, followed by an HND.

The awards recognised a further three students for their outstanding work.

Ben Laurie, representing the University of Aberdeen was named runner up for his work in hyberbolic neural networks. His work explores knowledge gaps in this space. Judges felt his work offered

St Andrews University student, Benjamin Sonnet, came in third with his work in game level generation through the lens of wave function collapse.

Finally, the Best Engineering Prize was awarded to David Topping of the University of Dundee. David developed a Library Occupancy Sensor (Li-Busy), which gives an overview of how busy the library at Dundee University is, section by section, allowing students to plan their visits.

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The longstanding Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards are held annually by ScotlandIS, to champion budding talent in the Scottish technology industry and highlight the innovation and ideas coming from Scotland’s university students.

To enter, universities submit the best final year software engineering project from among their undergraduate computing science and software engineering courses for the awards.

Other shortlisted students included, Jack Cavar, Abertay University, Litu Ou, University of Edinburgh, Julia Swietochowska, Edinburgh Napier University, Giacomo Fadda, Glasgow Caledonian University, John McIver, Heriot Watt University, Shaun Lennon, Robert Gordon University, Daniela Berzina, University of Stirling, and Kathleen Edie, University of the West of Scotland.