THE University of Guyana (UG) Department of Computer Science, last Friday, staged its annual exhibition and presentation of final year research projects, by this year’s graduating class, in the Education Lecture Theatre (ELT) on the Turkeyen Campus. Head of the Department, Mr. Lenandlar Singh said the best undergraduate students’ projects in Computer Science and Information Systems are put on display every year, open to the public.
“We really are trying to sell, market and demonstrate what we are doing in the department and how it’s relevant in the national development context in the area of information technology,” he explained.
Singh pointed out that the items on exhibit were just a sub-set of all the projects, but the better ones, and, while they were done by the recently graduated class, they were supervised by staff members.
He highlighted that the exhibition was well received by students and members of the public, adding that it was actually overwhelming as people seemed very impressed by what they saw.
“I think people are surprised that we are doing reasonably good work here and to be able to demonstrate it to them in a very live way, I think it helped people to understand. It was well received, we also had roundtable and we had good feedback,” Singh reported.
In addition, he related that the department also encouraged people to be critical and provide comments as to what can be done for improvement.

Were better                 
Singh said, although every year they have good projects with excellent ideas, those presented this year were better.
“This year, I think they were a bit better. They’re a bit more polished in terms of how they are developed, how they are evaluated, how the presentations are organised and how they fit into development,” he emphasised.
Singh remarked that it was very important for students to consider what they are doing because their projects impact on some problem that exists in society.
“So a lot of the projects, this year, were very relevant to development in the technology world. So I think, in terms of context, they are way better this year. But we’ve always had good projects and good ideas, but this year they were more polished,” Singh reiterated.
A total of 10 projects were presented on Friday on various categories such as Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction and E-Learning, among others.
Meanwhile, the best graduating student in Computer Science, Shafeeza Hussain was also honoured with the award of the Shivraj Maraj Memorial Prize.
Singh said the department has an agreement with Vishnu Panday and Associates, who have been awarding the best graduating student with this prize for nine years now.