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City of Portsmouth College IT students wow Portsmouth business leaders with ideas for an app they’ve built from scratch.

City of Portsmouth College IT students wowed Portsmouth business leaders with ideas for an app they’ve built from scratch.

The project was part of their work experience for LocalLinked, one of the organisations on the Portsmouth Business Support Scheme, run by Shaping Portsmouth.

They presented their ideas to Luca Frederick (a University of Portsmouth student who runs Local Linked), together with Brian Harpur (Managing Director of GRP Solutions) and Becci Simmonds (CEO of Spark Community).

City of Portsmouth College IT students helping to shape the future of Portsmouth

Luca later said: "This has been an incredible experience for me, I can't thank the students enough for the effort they have put in.

“LocalLinked now has a great base platform to continue developing the app to make sure it's ready for September."

Dave Humphries. CEO of Shaping Portsmouth, was so impressed he wrote to COPC Principal Katy Quinn, thanking all the students involved and describing them and their lecturers as great ambassadors for the college.

“I’m not sure what I was expecting but wow! They were all fantastic,” he added. “I’m really blown away by the quality of work the students presented and think it’s great we have COPC students supporting local entrepreneurship and innovation in this way.”

Presenting their ideas - City of Portsmouth College IT students

The original idea was to present the winning team with £100 but the judges were so torn they decided to issue two £100 prizes, together with a Shaping Portsmouth certificate for every student that took part.

Lecturer Will McDowell said: “I am so proud of the students and in awe of what they have achieved. Not only have they excelled in everything that they have done at college, I was able to see them all grow as team-players and develop a professional attitude.

“Seeing everything taught in lessons and our focus on teaching to an industry standard being embedded into this project only strengthens our want to create the highest standard of up-and-coming IT professionals.”

Taking part were:

Level 3 Year 1 BTEC IT

Sence PeytonMax McDonaldDaniel Ratherham

Level 3 Year 2 BTEC Software Development

Bailey CadmanMia-Rose MorganAlfie LoaderJosh RedpathBen CharltonDan OgundejiKieron Richardson-SwordTerry Turner

T Level Digital Support Services

Alphonse ThomasNosakhare Atomon

Portsmouth students showcase new app to business leaders