JMC Undergraduate wins WCIT Outstanding Information Technology Student Prize

by

Bryan Liu

L to R: Master: Alderman Sir David Wootton, Bryan Liu, Master educator Mr John Leighfield CBE

Bryan Liu, 4th year Joint Maths and Computing Undergraduate student, awarded WCIT Outstanding Information Technology Student Prize 2016

Bryan Liu, a 4th year Joint Maths and Computing Undergraduate student, was the overall winner of the Outstanding Information Technology Student Prize 2016, awarded by the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists  (WCIT).

The award was presented on 10th February 2016 by Master: Alderman Sir David Wootton, 684th Lord Mayor of the City of London serving from 2011-2012, and Alderman of the City of London representing the Ward of Langbourn since 2005, alongside the Master educator Mr John Leighfield CBE, at WCIT’s 91st Business Luncheon. Bryan attended the luncheon with the Department of Computing’s  Head of Department, Professor Susan Eisenbach.

The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists  (WCIT) became the 100th Livery Company in the City of London in 1992, and were awarded Royal Charter in 2010. Alan Benjamin and Bernard Harty approached the City of London in the early 1980‘s with the idea of starting a livery company for people working in IT. Setting up a livery company for information technologists reflected the changing nature of work within the City of London, and the increasing contribution of the IT industry. Today the company does a range of activities including working with industry with an aim to contribute to the advancement of ICT, using their charitable funds to improve the lives of those suffering social deprivation, and supports education in ICT.

For the Outstanding Information Technology Student Prize 2016 WCIT were looking for students with individual merits focusing on four areas; academic excellence, overcoming adversity, entrepreneurial skills, and contribution to charity or community. Bryan was nominated for and received the award for demonstrating his outstanding contributions in the areas of:

Academic excellence:

  • Bryan was awarded the G-research prize in 2014/2015 for academic achievements in the Joint Mathematics and Computing course (3rd year).

Contribution to charity or community:  

  • Bryan actively volunteers in the Imperial College community. He was IT officer for the PASS Society, Imperial College Union during his 2nd year, logging over 1000 volunteer hours for 80 members, and raising over £2500 for 4 charities - Makomborero, British Heart Foundation, Orbis HK and World Vision UK - with the committee.
  • Bryan has been an academic representative each year he has been at Imperial, being JMC Year Rep in years 1 and 2, and JMC Department Rep in years 3 and 4.

Entrepreneurial skills (attending extracurricular courses and producing projects):

  • ILM Level 5 Award in Volunteer Management
  • Bryan looked at a problem affecting Londoners on daily basis: status updates from Transport for London (TfL). These updates are manual and not often up to date, resulting in productivity loss due to delayed information. To counter the problem, Bryan teamed up with three other Computer Science students in a hackathon and wrote a web app that could  provide real-time updates and make delay predictions for the Underground by analysing tube arrival and departure data, with a vision to enable Londoners to make real real-time and informed decisions. The prototype has been well received by a group of software engineers, and the team were awarded a prize for the innovative idea. The WCIT panel were particularly impressed with this work.
  • Contribution to open-sourced libraries, including code fixes, and case studies: rCharts and libspf2

Bryan said of his achievement "I am extremely delighted to be named as the overall winner. My heartfelt thanks to Prof. Susan Eisenbach and Dr Maria Valera-Espina for supporting my application throughout, as well as the Departments of Computing and Mathematics, and Imperial College Union for allowing me to live my student life to the fullest."

Congratulations to Bryan!

For more information on WCIT please see:

WCIT

Reporter

Sarah Willis

Sarah Willis
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering