This month we bid a fond farewell to University of the West of Scotland (UWS) lecturer Nondas Pitticas who will retire from UWS on 31 December, almost 41 years to the day when he joined, what was then, Paisley College of Technology.  

Nondas started at the Microelectronics Educational & Development Centre (MEDC) at the Paisley Campus on a trial basis in January 1984, taking on the challenge to programme the resident robot ‘HERO’ to talk, which he achieved before going on to install and operate the College’s first weather station, receiving images from the NOAA orbital satellites.

In 1986 he moved to the Department of Land Economics to install the local area network (LAN) of BBC computers and once the LAN was up and running, he turned his attention to the Department’s Resources Laboratory.

With his deep knowledge of databases, Nondas was instrumental in turning the Land Economics Resource Laboratory into the Land Value Information Unit (LVIU), a commercial unit employing some 20 data-processing staff, which provided details of house prices for the whole of Scotland on a commercial basis.

In February 2007, the LVIU launched the ScottishHousePrices.com website, the very first on-line service recording property sale prices throughout Scotland. The event took place at the Watermill Hotel in Paisley and was attended by some 90 property professionals from surveying firms, banks and all Scottish Local Authorities.

Property professionals from every Scottish Local Authority, Banks, Estate Agents and Research Centres would log onto ScottishHousePrices.com and purchase their services on subscription, while members of the public could purchase on a pay-as-you-go basis.

A Greek national, Nondas was also responsible for the admission of Greek students to the University, the marketing of courses and the collaborative delivery of 6 postgraduate programmes including International Marketing and Real Estate Appraisal at the TEI Piraeus, now University of Western Attica, in Athens. These produced more than 1,350 graduates, some of whom have become staff and developed international activities and joint research that have lasted to this day.

Over the past 15 years, as well as coordinating 1000s of local, TNE and Distance Learning MBA students on their final project and 2 PhD completions, Nondas has led on European exchanges and partnerships for the business programmes. He expanded the original portfolio of 10 partner institutions to just under a 100 which, at its peak, would have seen around 400 exchange students from EU partner institutions coming to UWS and around 50-65 UWS students heading out to partner institutions.