Lincoln College alumni leads AI Development

A former Lincoln College student has returned to the city to share how the school helped him to overcome barriers to meet his achievements in AI development.

Thomas Hughes (pictured above) studied at the city college from 2018 to 2023 and now leads teams working on AI for some of the world’s largest companies. He shared his personal journey during a closing speech at the Lincoln College Group’s annual Further Education (FE) Awards earlier this month. 

“I’m very proud of where I am today, it has been a struggle but I’m glad I got here in the end. My time at Lincoln College gave me so many opportunities and I’ve also been honoured to return as a guest lecturer,” explained Thomas, who won Best Student at the FE Awards in 2019 (pictured below)

The awards highlight students who have shown academic excellence and celebrate those who have overcome difficulties in order to succeed. Thomas experienced his own challenging circumstances when he had double knee surgery before his GCSEs, which led to him struggling with great pain during his exams. 

“I only achieved two GCSEs at school due to the effects of having to medicate after my surgery, so I had to study my Level 2 Computing qualification at college alongside attaining my Maths and English GCSEs. After that, I moved onto achieving my Level 3 qualification.  

“When it came time to choose a university, I decided to stay at Lincoln College for my BSc (Hons) in Computer Science. I chose to stay because I trusted the education, mentorship, and environment here.

“I decided to take the plunge and move to London following graduation. I was lucky enough to be appointed at Bayezian. I’m now a lead AI Engineer and work with a team of six other developers. We produce work for the pharmaceutical industry as well as the finance sector.” 

Mark Locking, Principal and CEO of Lincoln College Group, added: “Thomas’s work at Bayezian is no doubt shaping the future of business and I’m so pleased to see that we played a key part in his future. To have former students return and inspire our current cohort is always such a special occasion.” 

To find out more about Lincoln College’s Career Degrees, visit www.lincolncollege.ac.uk/lincoln-college-university-centre/career-degrees