"Software Engineering is a challenging degree course but if you have the right foundation of knowledge and a passion for the subject, it’s a great choice as it focuses on the technology of the future."
Two former IT students from Lewisham College have shown their exceptional technical skills having won second place in a prestigious European innovation competition on digital payment systems, held in Milan, Italy.
The two friends – Nowman Islam and Showrov Abul – both gained a Level 3 Extended Diploma in IT at the College before going on to study for a Software Engineering degree at Queen Mary University of London, one of the top universities in the UK and part of the elite Russell Group.
Nowman and Showrov battled it out against seven other teams of students at the ‘Future of Digital Payment’ competition in November 2017. Having pitched their ideas for making digital payments more secure, they were named runners-up by a jury which included major European banks such as Bank of Italy and Unicredit.
The event was run by multinational company Reply and attended by an audience of over 1,000 university students and executives from financial institutions.
Nowman says: “One of the best moments was after the event, when an executive officer from Reply approached us and asked us to send the company our CVs as they wanted to consider us for their internships programme. This was our best reward.
Head of IT and Computing, Adu Antwi, comments: “I’m delighted to see that these talented former students have won recognition for their fantastic coding abilities. It really does demonstrate that the IT foundations we provide students with at the College are the basis for building advanced skills which can take you anywhere.”
