PDMS celebrates Scotland's young software engineering talent

PDMS is delighted to be one of the sponsors at this year’s Young Software Engineer of the Awards (YSE). 

The awards are organised by ScotlandIS, the trade body for the digital technologies industry in Scotland and form part of their annual ScotSoft Conference.

The YSE Awards showcase some of the brightest minds Scottish universities have to offer.  Nominees were drawn from recent graduates of computer science (and related undergraduate degrees) and the winners decided by a panel of judges, who have over 100 years combined industry experience. 

The nominees are all truly inspirational and have worked on innovative ideas on projects that cover a wide range of industries. This year’s nominees have faced the additional challenge of delivering their projects whilst also dealing with the impact of a global pandemic.  

Our team in Glasgow were delighted to meet these talented young people throughout the dinner and find out more about their dissertation topics which were showcased during the evening.

Young Software Engineer Award Winner 2021

The competition was tough with many outstanding submissions which showcased a diverse range of projects that covered high levels of innovation and technical difficulty. The winner was Stepan Brychta who was awarded first place for his AI music creation assistant 'Fryderyk'. 

Named after composer Fryderyk Chopin, the assistant uses artificial intelligence to help human composers create music with dozens of musical styles to choose from. Stepan created a prototype for Fryderyk and such was the high-level of engineering, a study of 39 people showed that they were unable to distinguish Fryderyk's compositions from fully human-composed music. 

ScotSoft 2021

In addition to the YSE Awards, the evening also served as the ScotSoft event. As one of the first opportunities to bring Scotland’s digital sector together again in person, it was both uplifting and entertaining.  The after-dinner speaker was world-renowned Social Engineer and keynote speaker, Jenny Radcliffe.

Jenny speaks, consults and trains people in the skills of “people hacking,” and explains how “social engineering” using psychological methods can be a huge threat to organisations of all sizes. Jenny was recognised as one of the top 25 Women in Cyber in 2020 by IT Security Guru and as a Top 50 Women of Influence in Cyber in 2019. 

We were delighted to play our part in showcasing, recognising and celebrating Scotland’s up-and-coming young digital talent, and we're looking forward to next year already. 

At PDMS, we are committed to helping future generations develop and providing them with the tools they need to lead digital transformation in years to come. Through awards such as these, we can recognise the young software engineering talent in Scotland and empower their visions for the future.

Learn more about our work with Scottish experts on our PDMS in Scotland page