Frances Sheridan, Programme Director of BSc in Computing; Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of NCI School of Computing; Claire Chung, CIO of Citibank Europe PLC; Professor Gina Quin, President of NCI; Amalia Moraru, winner of the NCI Award for Best Project on the BSc in Technology Management; Eve Gibney, Ada Lovelace Awardee; Xiangze Xue, Bronze Award winner sponsored by AWS; Kyle White, Silver Award winner sponsored by the HSE; Professor Cristina Hava-Muntean, Vice Dean of NCI’s School of Computing; Seán-Robert Ntonya, winner of the Gold Award sponsored by Citi; Constantin Gavrila, winner for the Best Project on the BSc (Hons) Computing, sponsored by Fidelity Investments.

Professor Gina Quin, President of National College of Ireland, welcomed final year computing students, their families and friends, academics and industry experts to NCI on Wednesday 28^th May 2025, saying:

“Project Showcase is always a special day for our students: the culmination of hard work, a celebration of achievement, and an opportunity to meet with potential employers. Faculty and staff enjoy this event, inspired by the next generation of technologists. And I know it is also important to businesses, to see the work of graduating students: I can say to potential employers that this year’s cohort of students has a particularly high rate of first class honours and I’m told that feedback from 3^rd Year work placements suggest that the class of 2026 will be equally strong and much sought-after by employers. This reflects not just the hard work of the students but the quality of teaching and support they receive at NCI.”

Final year computing students at National College of Ireland (NCI) take part in Project Showcase each year, an occasion that allows them to engage one-to-one with industry experts and graduate recruiters.

NCI is known for its focus on entrepreneurship and employability and takes advantage of its location, at the crossroads of the IFSC and Silicon Docks, to foster strong relationships with its neighbouring businesses. The best final year projects of the Class of ‘25 received prizes sponsored by Citi, Fidelity Investments, the HSE, and AWS (Amazon Web Services).

Amalia Moraru, winner of the NCI Award for Best Project on the BSc in Technology Management.

Prizes were presented by guest speaker, Claire Chung, CIO of Citibank Europe PLC, alongside NCI’s Dean of Computing, Professor Paul Stynes.

“A technology degree is a starting point that can bring you anywhere” said Claire Chung in her address to students, “fostering a mind set and analytical thinking that can be applied to any challenge. Today, also, you communicated the purpose of your project and the technologies you used to an audience that included non-tech people: soft skills such as these will stand to you collaborating with colleagues, understanding business requirements, and working with stakeholders from all departments. Citi is one of the biggest banks in the world, with 650 technical staff working in our Dublin office alone, just a short walk from NCI. We are always looking for people of your calibre, and I encourage you to apply to our graduate programme.”

• Each year, Project Showcase judges come across students or projects that miss winning the top prize, but are notable and deserving of recognition. To address this, the School of Computing created an 'open' award named for Ada Lovelace, who is considered to be the first computer programmer but was not celebrated in her own right until 2009. This year’s Ada Lovelace Award went to Eve Gibney for her project, Warrior Tournaments
• The Award for Best Project on the BSc (Hons) in Computing, sponsoted by Fidelity Investments, was presented to Constantin Gavrila for his project, Message Flow, a multi-channel messaging platform that enables companies to manage conversations from various messaging services, integrating AI with context-aware responses.
• The NCI award for Best Project on the BSc (Hons) in Technology Management webt to Amalia Moraru for her project, Analysis of Energy Consumption in Computational Systems using LLM, which can inform energy efficiency at larger scales for business applications.
• The Bronze Award, sponsored by AWS, went to Xiangze Xue for his project, Smart Fitness Plan Generator, that creates personalised fitness plans, including workouts, nutrition and progress tracking, using Java, Vue framework, JavaScript, Spring Boot, MySQL, and OpenAI API.
• The Silver Award, sponsored by the HSE, went to Kyle White for his project, Orrery.
• And the Gold Award for Project Showcase 2025, acknowledging the best overall project, a €3,000 prize sponsored by Citi, was presented to Sean-Robert Ntonya for his project, EcoDetect.

"I am very proud of this year’s cohort of students and congratulate them on successfully completing their course of study. I also want to acknowledge the Programme Directors of the BSc (Hons) Technology Management and the BSc (Hons) Computing, Professor Cristina Hava-Muntean, Vice Dean of the School of Computing; and Assistant Professor of Computing, Frances Sheridan, as well as the lecturers, programme coordinators, school administrators, careers and support teams, who helped these students along the way. I particularly want to thank our sponsors today, Citi, Fidelity Investments, the HSE and AWS – Project Showcase wouldn’t be possible without you.” said Professor Paul Stynes, Dean of the School of Computing.

Award-winner Constantin Gavrila with one of his computing lecturers, Associate Professor Emer Thornbury.

Project Showcase 2025 had everything, including the KitchenSynch!

62 students exhibited at Project Showcase 2025 – here is just a taste of what was on view:

Citi's Gold Award for best overall project went to Sean-Robert Ntonya for his project, EcoDetect – an IoT (Internet of Things) based environmental monitoring system that uses Raspberry Pi sensors and AWS services to track temperature, humidity, pressure, water usage, and vehicle usage, alerting exceeded thresholds and generating reports that offer AI-powered insights to help users optimise their energy usage and reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint.

Want to run your own gaming tournament? You need Ada Lovelace Award-winning Eve Gibney’s tournament manager platform, Warrior Tournaments. Users can register for tournaments, track their leaderboard standings, and climb the ranks by earning points from tournament wins. Warrior Tournaments also offers live streams of ongoing matches, delivering an all-in-one gaming experience, using Next.js, Node.js, tailwind css, Cloudinary, vercel, neon, postgreSQL, IDMB api, Twitch api and playwright.

Would you like to play a game? Rutwik Ambre built Sands of Survival using Unreal Engine, C++, Blender and Blueprints. This is a wave-based survival game set on the rugged shores of Ireland, where players must battle relentless enemies, adapt to dynamic combat challenges, and harness strategic power-ups.

Aiming for the stars? Kyle White’s Orrery uses C#, JSON, Blender 4.0 and Unity Engine 6 to offer a 3D stellar system generator and editor, based on real world physics and observed exoplanet trends, for use as an education and design tool. Orrery won this year’s Project Showcase Silver Award, sponsored by the HSE.

Journey Pal by Gavin Kelly is a Safety Travel Companion App, providing country ratings for the safety of marginalised groups, such as LGBTQ+ travellers, alongside essential information such as currency and time zones. Journey Pal, built using Kotlin, OpenCV, OnRender API, Android Studio and Tensor Flow, also offers a panic button that messages trusted contacts, file encryption to safely store e-documents and a hidden camera detector.

Frances Sheridan, who is the Programme Director for NCI’s BSc (Hons) in Computing and is part of the Project Showcase event production team added:

"For some students, the path to Project Showcase isn’t always a direct one, and their project work is delayed for one reason or another. We view Project Showcase as a pivotal opportunity for students, and not one to be missed. So, this year, we have several students showcasing work in progress projects which they will complete in the coming months. These students will use their interactions on the day to gather feedback which can be incorporated into their work as they move forward."

One such project is KitchenSynch, by Alosio Junior, who will submit his final project in September this year. He is building a Kitchen Display System (KDS), designed to manage kitchen operations, with orders displaying on screen in real-time, getting rid of the need for paper. Using React.js, Node.js, Socket.io, MongoDB, AWs and Jest, KitchenSynch will allow chefs to view all active orders, update their status, put orders on hold or recall, and more.