Announcing: The Semester Project

The Semester Project is an opportunity for university students and industry professionals to team up over a course of a semester and develop open source software projects for persons with disabilities. This program is organized and sponsored by Project:Possibility and its industry partners.

Applications are closed for the Spring 2008 program. If you are interested in participating in future Semester Projects, check out some reasons to participate and please be sure to sign up for our announcement list.

If you are currently employed as a software engineer, please visit the Semester Project Leads page.

Spring 2008 Pilot Program @ The University of Southern California

On April 30th, 2008, student teams led by engineers from Google, NASA, and Amgen will have spent 12 weeks developing free, innovative technology that empowers persons with physical and mental disabilities.

Please join us for a final review of their work on April 30th in Seely G. Mudd (SGM) Room 124 on USC Campus. Dinner will be served at 6:30 PM and presentations will begin at 7:00 PM. Refreshments will be served before the awards ceremony at the conclusion of the event. Please be sure to download the flier for all the details.

Software projects this semester:

• Intelligent word prediction
• Mobile (cell-phone) currency reader
• Assistive technology search engine
• Gesture recognition framework
• Universal closed-captioning for the web

We are proud to host several guest reviewers at the Final Review, which include:

• Bhaskar Krishnamachari, Autonomous Networks Research Group, USC
• Charles Sanglimsuwan, USC GamePipe / Microsoft
• Dhruv Thukral, Electronic Arts
• Jinbo Chen, Northrop Grumman Mission Systems
• Marc Allen, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
• Murali Annavaram, Super Computing In Pocket Research Group, USC

For Students: Why Participate?

There are several great reasons to get involved in future Semester Projects:

• Gain valuable experience: This is an opportunity to apply what you've learned in the classroom and acquire valuable knowledge and skills from your industry team lead.
• Further a great cause: The software developed at the Semester Project will go directly toward giving people a chance to live easier and more productive lives.
• Make new friends: Your team will be balanced with members of different skillsets and led by a working professional. Working together, you will create something that will make a lasting difference in people's lives.
• Free stuff: Everyone loves freebies. We will serve meals at our regular meetings and also promise cool prizes and giveaways during the program. At the conclusion of the program, we will be awarding teams for their special efforts.

Software Projects for Spring 2008

Unique to the Semester Project, we have partnered with Sun Microsystems and EyeTech Digital Systems to provide two unique, cutting-edge hardware platforms for this semester:

• SunSPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology) by Sun Microsystems
• EyeTech TM3 eye-gaze tracking hardware by EyeTech

For the Spring 2008 Pilot, we will propose a tentative list of new projects to students in addition to existing Project:Possibility projects. Students will be able to indicate their general preferences in their application to the Semester Project. Ultimately, students will work with their teammates team leads to finalize their project proposal for the semester.

Teams

Teams will be 3-5 persons in size plus one or more industry team leads. Participants may request teammate pairings. Team formation will be an active, involved process in which individual skillsets are matched to teammates, projects, and mentors. We will make our best effort to ensure each team is a winning combination!

Timeline

The Semester Project pilot is a 12 week program that begins on February 13th, 2008 and ends on April 30th, 2008.

• Week 1: Participants Selected / Teams Assigned / Orientation (February 13th)
• Week 3: Team Status Update Due (February 27th)
• Week 5: General Meeting (March 12th)
• Week 7: Team Status Update Due (March 26th)
• Week 9: General Meeting (April 9th)
• Week 11: Final Submissions / Begin prep for Presentation (April 23rd)
• Week 12: Presentations / Disorientation (April 30th)

Our Semester Project Partners

A huge thank you to our partners in the Semester Project!