Dushko with his summer 2013 colleagues Tracey Binnie (L) and Cheryl Cairns (R)
Dushko is a final year student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia where he specialises in Informatics and Computer Engineering.
He applied for his place with us through the IAESTE internship programme, following in the footsteps of fellow Macedonian Maja Ilievska. Maja made a great contribution to the DREaM and RiLIES projects within the Centre for Social Informatics in summer 2012.
Dushko’s project is related to my work as School of Computing’s Academic Champion for the work of the Scottish Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology (SRC for short). The SRC’s role is to create sustainable change for women in science engineering and technology (SET) sectors throughout Scotland. It partners the Scottish Government in delivering projects to increase the participation of women in SET education and employment. My own role within the SRC is to help support the participation of women in the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University, for example by encouraging girls to apply for our computing courses (both undergraduate and postgraduate), and by supporting those already studying in the School.
Dushko’s work will focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a WordPress site for Connect, the network for women studying computing, engineering and the built environment at Edinburgh Napier University. The site will include a blog designed to promote Connect to current students, and to potential women applicants to our degree courses in computing, engineering and the built environment (as well as those who support young women’s career choices, such as school teachers and parents). At the end of the project Dushko will pass the site over to the students, who will take responsibility for its maintenance and further development in 2013/14.
I am supervising Dushko as he works closely with the Student Project Officer at the Scottish Resource Centre Cheryl Cairns (the project “client”) and Tracey Binnie, who is Connect student champion for the School of Computing.
