Bringing together creativity, technology and industry expertise, this year’s Computer Science and Engineering Final Year Project (FYP) Showcase celebrated the exceptional achievements of our graduating students. In partnership with IT services company Netcompany, the annual event provided a platform for students to showcase their original technology-based solutions, developed throughout their final year. Their projects explored ways to address real-world challenges, with students presenting their ideas to industry professionals from Netcompany and Smart DCC. Now in its fifth year, the showcase highlights the breadth of talent across the School and gives students the opportunity to gain valuable industry insight, receive expert feedback and showcase projects with real-world applications.
From more than 400 final-year project submissions across the School, ten outstanding projects were selected to be showcased. The finalists were recognised for their achievements and invited to present their work to a panel of industry experts. All ten students received prizes ranging from £100 to £1,000 in addition to competition categories for 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Social Impact prizes.
This blog series will highlight some of the finalist projects, sharing their experiences of developing their ideas, presenting their work to industry professionals and reflecting on their journey studying at Westminster.
We spoke to Computer Science BSc student Alexandra, one of this year’s finalists and winner of third place about her final year project, her Westminster experience and career ambitions.
Could you tell me a bit about your course and what aspects you have particularly enjoyed?
The Computer Science BSc has given me a strong foundation in both the theoretical and practical aspects of computer science. What I’ve enjoyed most is the emphasis on applying what I’ve learned to solve real-world problems, rather than simply completing textbook exercises. I particularly enjoyed the optional modules that allowed me to combine machine learning with software engineering, as this combination enabled me to develop a practical and meaningful solution for my final-year project.
Could you share some of the skills you have developed during the course and how these skills have prepared you for your final project and future career?
Beyond the curriculum, the course pushed me to develop skills that turned out to be just as important as the technical side. Working in teams taught me how to collaborate effectively and taking on a team lead role gave me practice in coordinating people, keeping a project moving, and making decisions when priorities conflicted. Time management was constantly tested, juggling coursework, project deadlines, and research alongside everything else meant learning to prioritise and plan realistically rather than optimistically. On the technical side, I built up real depth in coding and software architecture, which became essential once I started designing my final year project, SmartSkin as a microservice-based system rather than a single script.
Could you tell us about your final project and what inspired this project?
My final-year project, SmartSkin, is an end-to-end secure web application that uses machine learning to assist with the classification of skin cancer lesions. The application is built using a microservice architecture with Django, Flask, Docker Compose, Nginx, and PostgreSQL. It also includes an LLM-powered assistant, DoctorAI, built on GPT-4o, which provides users with contextual information and supports the overall diagnostic experience.
The project was inspired by my interest in applying machine learning to healthcare, particularly in areas where early detection can significantly improve patient outcomes. Skin cancer stood out as an ideal application because diagnosis relies heavily on visual information, making it well suited to machine learning, while also presenting a meaningful real-world challenge where accuracy is critical.
One of the aspects I’m most proud of is that the machine learning model achieved over 95% accuracy for binary classification and 91% accuracy across multiple classes. Rather than relying on a computationally intensive convolutional neural network (CNN), I engineered a set of image features and trained a K-Nearest Neighbours (KNN) classifier. This delivered strong performance while keeping the model lightweight enough to run efficiently without requiring GPU resources.
How does it feel to present your project to industry professionals?
Presenting my project to industry professionals is both exciting and rewarding, although it’s naturally a little nerve-wracking. It gives me the opportunity to explain not only what SmartSkin does, but also the reasoning behind the key technical decisions I made. For example, I can discuss why I chose a lightweight KNN model over a more computationally intensive CNN, and how adopting a microservice architecture improves scalability, maintainability, and deployment flexibility.
One of the most valuable aspects of the experience is receiving questions and feedback from people working in the industry. It challenges me to communicate complex technical ideas clearly and demonstrates whether I truly understand the design choices behind my project. It’s also a great opportunity to gain different perspectives on how the system could be improved or applied in real-world settings, making the experience both motivating and a valuable learning opportunity.
How did it feel to have your project judged by professionals and win 3rd prize?
Winning this prize means a lot to me. SmartSkin started as an attempt to make skin cancer screening more accessible and having it recognised by industry professionals from Netcompany and Smart DCC is a huge honour.
What are your career aspirations and how do you think your course has prepared you to help achieve this?
My ambition is to pursue a career in healthcare research, particularly within the field of Healthcare AI, while remaining open to exploring other opportunities.
My course has prepared me for this goal in a very practical way. Through my final-year project, SmartSkin, I gained hands-on experience developing a complete machine learning system for a healthcare application, not just training a model, but designing the wider architecture, deploying the system, and considering how it could be used effectively in a real-world clinical context.
Alongside my project work, I have also been involved in research papers comparing machine learning approaches for skin cancer classification. This has given me valuable insight into the difference between academic research and applied engineering and has helped me appreciate the level of rigour required in healthcare-focused research. For example, I have developed a stronger understanding of the importance of evaluating models beyond misleading accuracy metrics, particularly when working with imbalanced datasets, and of validating results through robust statistical analysis rather than relying on performance figures alone.
Combining the technical depth of my course with my research and project experiences, I feel well prepared to continue building towards a career at the intersection of artificial intelligence and healthcare, where I can contribute to developing technologies that have a meaningful impact on people’s lives.
What has been the highlight of your time studying at Westminster?
I have enjoyed how hands-on everything is. The lecturers are genuinely involved, invested in what we’re building, and willing to push us to do better work. That involvement, combined with the sheer range of opportunities the course opened, from project work to research to events such as the Final Year Project showcase, is what made my time at Westminster feel like more than just a degree. It gave me the chance to build things, make mistakes, and grow from them with people who cared about the outcome as much as I did.
Empowering Students Through Industry Engagement
Huseyin Dagdeviren, Senior Lecturer and Director of Employability in Computer Science and Engineering, shared:
“The Final Year Project Showcase continues to be a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the creativity, technical expertise and dedication of our students. Now in its fifth year, our partnership with Netcompany, alongside the involvement of Smart DCC, has allowed us to strengthen the connection between academia and industry, giving our students the opportunity to showcase their work, receive valuable feedback and build confidence in presenting their ideas to professionals.
The quality and diversity of this year’s projects demonstrate the incredible talent within our School and the ability of our students to apply their learning to address real-world challenges. These experiences are an important part of preparing our graduates for successful careers in the technology sector.”
Mariella Chapman, Supplier Relationship Manager at Smart DCC shared:
“The DCC team found the projects incredibly interesting and were genuinely inspired by the level of talent across the University. It was a real privilege to be part of the day, and we look forward to continuing to build on this through future collaboration and co-creation with Westminster.”
Graham Robinson, Chief Technology Officer at Smart DCC and judge at the event commented:
“It was inspiring to see the creativity, innovation and technical excellence on display, with students consistently focusing on how their ideas could deliver real value for end users.”
The showcase reflects Westminster’s strong commitment to employability and real-world learning, providing students with opportunities to develop industry connections, gain professional experience and graduate as confident, skilled contributors in the ever-evolving technology sector.
About Westminster
As one of the most diverse universities in the UK, we are a global university with London energy, with more than 19,000 students from 169 countries. Visit our website to find out more about our Computer Science and Engineering courses.
