What happens to MSc projects after assessment

Built for marks

During my MSc, I built projects to meet module requirements and show what I had learned. Like most student projects, they ended with the module.

There were seven of them. Each one was completed for assessment. None was taken to market.

What one project showed

For my dissertation I built five question-answering systems. One worked without retrieval. The other four used different retrieval methods: BM25, TF-IDF, dense and hybrid. Each answered the same 50 questions over a controlled test catalogue of 105 products, 10 retailers and 302 offers. Prices, stock and store details in the catalogue were synthetic.

The dissertation was submitted in August 2026. The result is pending.

What it would take

The real-world potential is an assistant that answers “who has this in stock near me, and at what price?” across a group of local shops. These are proposed requirements, not existing arrangements:

1. 01Real, current product, price and stock data from participating retailers, and a way to keep it up to date.
2. 02Testing with real shoppers.
3. 03Better handling of questions it cannot answer, which the study found unreliable.

Where the Innovation Exchange fits

That is the idea behind the proposed Innovation Exchange: a way for students, universities and businesses to explore these possibilities together. It connects business challenges with student talent, university knowledge and entrepreneurial ideas.

Takeaways

• +A project that ends with assessment can still be a starting point.
• +Write down what it would take to use it for real.
• +Look for the business that has the problem.

Anwar Malik

Founder of Digital Towns® Ltd and TownsConnect™. MSc Applied AI, Teesside University.

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