A University of Aberdeen graduate has been announced the runner up of a national competition that celebrates the most innovative and creative technology students across Scotland.
Klara Krämer, who graduated with a degree in Computing Science earlier this year, achieved second place at the Young Software Engineer of the Year (YSE) Awards 2025.
Her project ‘Interactive Visual Data Engineering’ examined how people and computers can work together to prepare data for use in analyses and machine learning models. As part of her project, she created an AI-powered tool called the ‘Visual Data Wizard’, that combines computer capabilities with human intuition, with the computer handling repetitive tasks and generating automatic visualisations, while people make the context-dependent decisions.
Awards are given for the best final year BSc undergraduate software projects drawn from across all students studying computer science and software engineering, with prizes for first, second and third place, as well as Best Engineering.
Klara said: “I was shocked when I first learned I had been nominated at the Young Software Engineer of the Year Awards, as I never expected the University to consider my project both this important and well-executed. It is an incredible honour to be nominated, especially since each Scottish university can only put forward one computing science graduate per year.
“The panel of technical judges also recognised the quality and impact of my work on the computing community and I was thrilled to receive the silver award — something I am deeply grateful for. I truly enjoyed the entire journey: from writing my dissertation and filming an interview about my project with a wonderful film team from Glasgow, to attending the ScotSoft 2025 conference and the accompanying award dinner.
“My favourite part of the experience was meeting fellow nominees from across Scotland, learning about their inspiring projects and making new friends along the way.”
Head of the School of Natural and Computing Sciences, Professor David McGloin, added: “We are incredibly proud of Klara and her success at the YSE Awards. The competition was of an extremely high standard and Klara’s achievement is a testament to the high quality and innovation of her project. Her win reflects the talent and drive that exists across the School.”