Top of the music chart

Mar 25 2009 by Sue Scott, Evening Gazette

COMPUTER whiz kids have won a coveted award after fine-tuning their own music-themed website.

The youngsters from Darlington College beat off competition from across the North East to claim victory in the Six-Hour Web Challenge staged by the University of Teesside.

IT students Jamie McGleish, Andrew Seymour, Georgina McGowan and Nigel Glasper were set the challenge of creating a site from which users could access their favourite tunes.

But the competition had a twist, as each team had to devise a site using a web development software language that they had never previously come across.

Each of the Darlington students employed the skills they had acquired in using other applications to produce the award-winning site - defeating teams from Sunderland College and Redcar and Cleveland College.

Judges assessed the finished products for the calibre of their design and the levels of technical ability used.

Jamie, 17, of Darlington, said: “It was a major challenge to design something in such a relatively short space of time - and in a language we had never used - so we were delighted to be named the winners.”

Gurdas Singh, IT tutor at Darlington College, said: “This was a really difficult task and we are extremely proud of our students’ achievements. To have a competition victory like this on their CVs will be a big boost to their career prospects in this industry.”