SSF engineer wins Digital Professional award

An IT engineer with Scottish Sea Farms has been recognised with an award for his innovative fish counting application.

David Lipcsey has been named Digital Professional of the Year at The Herald Digital Transformation Awards 2021, after using his programming skills to create software to help count fish coming into the harvest station at the SSF processing and packing facility at Scalloway, Shetland, where he was working as a supervisor.

The application enables the processing team to adjust the flow as and when necessary to minimise stress and maximise animal welfare.

Lipcsey said: “It’s a real honour to be named Digital Professional of the Year. When I first came up with the idea, I never thought it would gain traction so quickly. It’s great to see the software being used on a daily basis, as well as being rewarded for it. Such appreciation really provides motivation to push on with new ideas.”

He programmed software that was able to capture images of the flow of fish by “listening” to signals from the harvesting system.

The app feeds this data back to the wellboat. The skipper can see on a tablet exactly how many fish are going into the harvest station at any given time and increase or reduce the flow as necessary to ensure a smooth flow, minimise stress and further enhance farmed fish welfare.

Having since transferred to the company’s IT team, Lipcsey is now adapting the technology into a product that covers even more aspects of processing.

The awards, held in association with Digital World, were announced in an online ceremony on 4 November 2021.

Scottish Sea Farms Head of IT David Anderson said: “I’m delighted for David that he has won this award. It’s a tremendous achievement for him and recognition for the project he has worked hard to deliver.

“David joined our team last year and, in that time, has proven to be a motivated professional, developing and delivering digital solutions across the business.”