Listen to a Dublin City FM interview from the day to hear about our students' innovation!

Students of the college's computing courses displayed work ranging from Ireland’s first personal medical history app to an internet-controlled robotic car, personalised role-playing games and a mobile app which could make life considerably easier for users of Dublin Bus.

The Grafton Medical History app, created by Johann Taljaard, who studied NCI’s BSc in Computing, makes it simple to keep track of medical records, medications and procedures from the convenience of your smartphone.

Johann said: “Sometimes you get to work with some amazing people on a product that could change, or save, lives. At NCI, I got to do just that! My app is the first of its kind in Ireland and has already been downloaded more than 500 times.”

Dr Keith Perdue, of the Grafton Medical Practice, provided Johann with guidance around the required medical information and overall structure of the app.

He said: “Increasingly, patients want to get actively involved in managing their own health, and this app effectively allows them to carry their medical history around in their pockets. I think it will be a great asset for patients not just of Grafton Medical Practice but on a much wider scale.”

Katie Donohoe is in her final year of the BA (Hons) in Technology Management at NCI. Her project, a mobile app called Rapid Refund, focuses on Dublin bus and would allow commuters to transfer the balance from their refund tickets directly to their Leap cards.

Katie said: "Rapid Refund has been a challenging yet rewarding project. Alongside the app, I have conducted research which proves how Rapid Refund can benefit both Dublin Bus as a company and their customers. There has been an extremely positive reaction to this project with many people asking when the app will be available”

Katie has accepted a place on Dell’s Inside Sales graduate programme but hopes to enter into talks with Dublin Bus and make Rapid Refund a reality.

Claudia Hocke is in her final year of the BSc. (Hons) in Business Information Systems at NCI. Her application, called Reperio, aims to help mobile operators counteract GSM subscription fraud by pre-processing call data into a database which can then be used to analyse call patterns. Losses through this type of fraud amounted to USD5.22bn in 2013, placing it in the top five of fraud types affecting global telecom revenues.

Claudia said: "Developing this solution has helped me gain a more in-depth understanding of modern telecommunications, and has allowed me to improve my analytical skills. While it was challenging at times, it has strengthened my interest in working in the data analytics field."

Other notable projects included Adam Cody's role-playing game, Journey of the Lost, which was made with Unity 4.1, Adam Monaghan's web application StudyBetterTogether.com and Eoin McCrann's app Automate - an app that automates manual tasks performed by IT technicians 

Commenting on the breadth and scope of the work on display, Pramod Pathak, Dean of the School of Computing at National College of Ireland, said:

“With the technology landscape growing and shifting so rapidly we are delighted to showcase the high calibre and broad range of development work of our computing graduates.

Their diverse work in areas like cloud computing, gaming and multimedia, software systems and more really demonstrates the huge opportunities available for skilled graduates in this industry in Ireland.”

Caroline Kennedy, Careers and Opportunities Officer at NCI said:

“Our focus within NCI Careers is employability and we work innovatively to ensure our students are the most employable in Ireland. The most recent Sunday Times league tables highlighted NCI as having ‘one of the most consistent and best graduate employment records’ and the NCI Careers Office was delighted to win the National AHECS Gold award for employability for both 2013 and 2014.

We are constantly looking for effective ways to promote our students to industry and this showcase is a perfect opportunity to get our students’ work in front of prospective employers.

We’re delighted to see such high levels of interest and engagement from industry - last years’ showcase resulted in a number of graduate job offers and we’re excited to build on this momentum.”

The guest speaker was Annrai O'Tool, chief technology officer, Europe at Workday, who also sponsored a prize at the event along with Citi, invercloud, and Wholeschool – the college thanks them for their generosity at this event.

Full List of Prize Winners and Awards:

• Katie Donohoe CITI Award for best Project in BA (Hons) in Technology
• Claudia Hocke The Wholeschool Award for best Project in BSc (Hons) in Business Information Systems
• Andrew Monaghan The Tapadoo Award for best Project in BSc (Hons) in Business Information Systems (Part time)
• Adam Cody The Invercloud award for best Project in BSc (Hons) in Computing
• Eoin McCrann The Workday Award for best Project in BSc (Hons) in Computing (Part Time)

Why not check out the photos on our Facebook page - are you in them?!