A Grand Day Out

I had the great privilege of attending the Oxford Brookes University, School of Technology graduation ceremony on a very warm and sunny Friday afternoon last week.

Markus Boritz accepting the BOCC Prize from Director Tracy Walker

BOCC sponsors an annual student prize at the School of Technology. The prize, entitled  'BOCC Computer Systems Development Award' aims to encourage excellence and the development and effective use of World Wide Web and computer systems techniques in project work.

The award is judged on the effective use of development techniques, as well as accessibility and security issues. Students also have to provide the details of which technologies they have employed in developing their applications and their reasons for making their choice.Oxford Brookes University short-list students and then BOCC awards the prize at that years Graduation Ceremony.

Ian Redmond OBE, delivering his acceptance speech

This years winner was Markus Boritz, with his dissertation on 'Approaches to Application Development for High End Mobile Devices: A Comparative Evaluation', which was supervised by Professor David Duce.

It was great to celebrate with the students on their graduation day, as well as congratulate this years Honorary Graduant Ian Redmond OBE, the renowned tropical field biologist and conservationist.

His acceptance speech was very inspiring, as he talked of his work with gorillas and elephants, working alongside Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall. He also encouraged us to think about our impact on the world and what we can all do about the conservation of our planet.