Celebrating Maria Hristova's Contributions to ITPI and Future Endeavours

It is with mixed emotions that we announce the departure of Maria Hristova , one of our talented front-end developers, who will be graduating on Monday. Maria Hristova has been an integral part of our team, and while we are sad to see her go, we are immensely proud of her achievements and excited for what lies ahead in her career. We would like to say a huge congratulations to her.

Maria Hristova joined our team as a Junior Front-End Developer and quickly demonstrated her skill and dedication, earning a promotion to Front-End Developer within just a year. Her role primarily involved enhancing the user experience of the iLancaster mobile application and experimenting with innovative technologies like Augmented Reality (AR).

Maria’s journey with us coincided with her academic pursuits at Lancaster University, where she completed both her undergraduate and master’s degrees. As she embarks on the next chapter of her life, we reflect on the significant contributions she made to our team and projects.

Key Contributions and Major Projects

Throughout her time with us, Maria Hristova worked on several high-impact projects, leaving a lasting legacy:

• iLancaster Improvements: Introduced a feature within the timetable that provided students with a summary of their upcoming deadlines, added a feed to the app that gives users quick updates on recent happenings in Lancaster, and added features to support large font settings, improving the app’s accessibility for all users.
• Ideas Wall Reimplementation: Using designs by Catherine Bond and Ava Sims , Maria Hristova rebuilt the Ideas Wall from scratch, demonstrating her technical expertise and creative vision.
• Augmented Reality Experiences: Worked on two AR projects surrounding the Ruskin project, including a 3D Book Experience and a Video AR Postcard Experience.

Favourite Projects and Personal Growth

Reflecting on her favourite projects, Maria Hristova shared:

"Working on the university mobile application iLancaster has been extremely fulfilling! Joining ITPI in my third year, I often heard students complain about the app’s speed. Enhancing features like the Timetable and improving performance brought me great satisfaction.

On the other hand, I had immense fun working on the Augmented Reality experiences. Despite having no prior experience with such technologies, I was able to pick up the code quickly and focus on the entertaining aspects. Seeing my colleagues enjoy the experiences and comment positively gave me a sense of accomplishment."        

Applying Theory to Practice

Maria's time with us allowed her to bridge the gap between theory and practice, significantly enriching her academic and professional journey.

"Working at ITPI has polished my skills by allowing me to put theory into practice. Additionally, working on the iLancaster mobile application has made my student life easier by fixing issues I encountered."

At ITPI, this is extremely valuable. We believe that no one understands student challenges better than students themselves. That’s why we prioritise hiring students to help enhance student life. This approach provides us with invaluable first-hand insight and perspective, while also offering students the opportunity to apply their learning in a real-world setting. By working on projects that directly impact their university experience, our student developers gain practical experience and contribute meaningfully to the campus community as proved by Maria Hristova .

Our senior front-end developer Anthony Humphreys works very closely with Maria Hristova on iLancaster and AR projects. Here is what he had to say about Maria’s departure.

Maria has been an invaluable asset to the team, and has worked relentlessly to implement key new features in iLancaster, as well as implementing a number of critical user experience improvements. She has brought her unique lived experience as a student to her development. Co-development is something we cherish in ITPI! Maria has applied herself to a range of complex problems and challenges, and has always been friendly, insightful and thoughtful in her work, and has always executed her work to a high standard. We will miss her!

Future Endeavours

As Maria Hristova graduates, she embarks on an exciting new chapter as a Software Engineer at Agsenze Ltd . This summer she will be undergoing this internship opportunity working on their award-winning systems to improve the quality of life, she is very enthusiastic about it.

We are incredibly proud of Maria and grateful for the contributions she has made to our team. Her passion, dedication, and innovative spirit have left an incredible mark, and we are confident she will continue to achieve great things in her future endeavours.

Join us in celebrating Maria Hristova accomplishments and wishing her all the best in her future career!

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