These are three students from Northumbria who built something useful. Not for a grade, but because they had a problem and decided to fix it.
Aisha, accessibility research assistant
Aisha is a third-year occupational therapy student. Finding research papers for her assignments took too long, and the search tools available weren't much help. Too much jargon, not enough context. She built a Claude-powered assistant that takes a plain-English description of a clinical question and returns a shortlist of relevant papers with plain-language summaries. She uses it every week now, and so do three of her coursemates.
Marcus, lecture note summariser
Marcus has dyslexia and found it hard to keep up with dense lecture slides while also taking notes. He built a tool that takes lecture PDFs and generates structured summaries with key terms highlighted and explanations written in plain language. He spent a weekend on it. His tutor asked if it could be made available to the whole cohort.
“I built it because I was struggling, and I thought maybe other people were too.
Marcus
Computing BSc Year 2
Priya, interview prep coach
Priya was preparing for a graduate scheme interview. The mock interview resources she found online were either too generic or too expensive, so she built her own. A Claude-based coach that asks questions tailored to the role and company, then gives feedback on her answers, pointing out vague language, missing examples, and places she could have been stronger. She got the job.
Why this matters
Most useful tools don't start as products. They start as someone thinking 'this should be easier' and then making it easier. The gap between having that thought and actually building something is smaller than most people think.
If there's something in your coursework, your workflow, your daily routine that doesn't work the way it should, that's enough to start. You don't need a business plan. You don't need to know how to code. You just need the problem.
