ScotlandIS CEO, Polly Purvis OBE was today awarded with an honorary degree, marking her as a Doctor of Technology from Abertay University.
On accepting the award from Abertay University Chancellor, Lord Cullen, Polly Purvis said:
“I’m so very honoured to receive this doctorate and absolutely delighted to accept it. I should like to thank Lord Cullen, Professor White and everyone at the university for the honour …I have been privileged for most of my career to work in jobs that I’ve loved in economic development in finance and latterly in the tech sector.”
Polly’s passion for education and skills has resulted in her proudest achievements, establishing CodeClan in 2015 and the Digital Xtra Fund in 2017. These projects were established to create opportunities for adults to rapidly retrain in computer science and software engineering and to support young people to access extra-curricular experiences to help them prepare for education and careers in Scotland’s world class digital industries.
In 2017 Polly’s achievements were recognised when she was awarded an OBE by the Queen in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to digital economy in Scotland. As she enters retirement, Polly can look back on the career that has transformed the lives of thousands of Scottish people for the better.
Polly moved to the Scottish Software Association in 1998 to work on the millennium bug planning and found that she enjoyed working in the computing sector so much that she stayed on when the organisation became ScotlandIS in the year 2000, rising through the organisation to become its Chief Executive Officer in 2013.
The previous chair of ScotlandIS Graeme Gordon described Polly’s commitment to developing the sector as follows:
“From the outset, Polly’s put education and skills at the heart of everything she does, she is the person that advocates for diversity and inclusion and she has the rare ability to bring together and incredibly diverse industry and help every participant to grow, improve and achieve more.”
The ScotlandIS Board and team would like to say congratulations to Polly and to thank Abertay University for the incredible honour.