One key to success is to build positive relationships with people but sometimes it might be difficult to find a connector or keep in touch after meeting new connections. Today we are introducing our project FoodBuddy that will bridge the gap between technology and interpersonal relationships and revolutionize the way to network in a casual environment through dining. FoodBuddy essentially is an events-based IOS app that connects you to eat with your friends, colleagues or even strangers. Registered users can easily publish and join events, explore hot activities nearby and follow the person you are interested in talking to. More importantly, you can grow your relationship with others right away. Can’t wait? Stop by our booth and let us help you build up your network while having fun meals. Remember, you should never eat alone!

Digital technologies can be powerful tools to empower marginalized communities. While libraries and community organizations provide free public access to these technologies, new users must learn to implement these tools in ways that are relevant to their lives. In order to engage with Latina women and their families around technology use, a group of University of Washington students partnered with Casa Latina, an education and worker’s center for immigrant Latino laborers, and library staff from King County Library System and Seattle Public Library. For the project, funded in part by the City of Seattle Technology Match Fund, I created a series of Spanish-language adult digital literacy workshops based on the expressed needs and interests of women at Casa Latina. I am facilitating these weekly workshops at Casa Latina and branch libraries over a six-month period.

Now more than ever, businesses have access to enormous data sets that include their customer transactions, demographic data and more. But simply storing the data does not mean the data is useful. How do organizations transform this data into a valuable business asset? Our project sponsor, Full Circle, the largest farm-to-customer organic produce and delivery service in the Pacific Northwest, asked us to develop a comprehensive assessment of customer retention by analyzing information available in their databases and marketing surveys. We used qualitative and quantitative research methods paired with design techniques to explore customer sentiment, analyze target audiences, identify independent variables significant to retention, and recommend prescriptive actions. Keeping customers is critical to the mission of Full Circle. Our analysis of customer purchasing behaviors and survey preferences led to actionable intelligence to improve customer retention by pinpointing how Full Circle better fulfill customer needs and expectations.

Game Graph is a video game metadata graph database and web application that provides an easy and extensible way to create, store, and retrieve metadata about video games. Building upon the work done at the Seattle Interactive Media Museum (SIMM) and the Game Metadata Research (GAMER) Group, this application envisions every possible point of information within a property graph database framework. By utilizing the graph database model, users are able to easily explore the relationships of video games. The goal of this project is to provide a useful tool for cataloging video game metadata, while assisting research into video games as information objects. As a component to a larger system, Game Graph provides the structural foundation for digitally cataloging video game collections.

Online exhibitions for the Digital Public Library of America showcase some of DPLA's vast resources and make them more accessible to viewers. DPLA particularly wants to draw more young people to its collections and to be of use to teachers and students. In our exhibition, we chose a topic of interest to everyone: childhood. Our exhibition comprises 40 images, metadata, and text about children's home lives, school, playtime, and work. We focus on the transformation of childhood in America from the 1880s to the 1940s resulting from the migration from country to cities, the rise of the middle class, and the enforced assimilation of multiple cultures into one national identity — the production of "good citizens." Our digital exhibition shows how class, race, gender, and national origin shaped the invention of childhood, and that in the early 20th century, there was no single American childhood, but many childhoods encompassing myriad experiences.

Though Kitsap Regional Library had comic format collections for Children and Young Adults, comics outside of those collections were spread across Adult Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Biography. These items were difficult for patrons to browse and discover. The shelving caused them to be weeded without having added as much value as they might to the collection. After preliminary catalog searches to identify items that might be added to the new collection, Stacy Wyatt and Lisa Longmire searched each branch to find comic format items. These items were then labeled and added to the collection in the catalog, as well as being relocated to new collection shelving in each branch. This collection is now easily identifiable whether patrons are visiting in person or online. The collection will be able to be specifically monitored to help it grow in a way that will be useful and enjoyable for patrons of Kitsap Regional Library.

Space Needle, LLC is seeking a move to a greener and more efficient electronic billing, invoicing, and records sharing system within the organization, with ability to share outside the organization. The company was seeking a digital process and invoice approval system to convert manual entry and workflow procedures and replace the antiquated format and practices already in place. This Capstone investigated emerging industry technologies surrounding electronic receiving, invoicing, and workflow with particular consideration of processes in document management and department budgeting and approval. Project impact includes elimination of misplaced files or invoices, instant document retrieval and sharing across the company, and a fit with the company’s new Green Initiatives Mission.

Healthcare costs in the U.S. have skyrocketed from $1.4 trillion in 2000 to $2.9 trillion in 2014 according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Our project – All-Payer Claims Database (APCD) Healthcare Cost Transparency, sponsored by the Washington Health Alliance (WHA) – may be a solution in healthcare cost containment and service improvement. APCDs collect de-identified medical claims data including clinical, financial, and utilization data. Several states have already passed a law to mandate an APCD, and Washington State is on the verge of passing the same law. WHA has the opportunity to be selected as the lead organization as the state authorized APCD administrator. Our project evaluates hosting options – in-house versus the cloud – and builds a functional but scaled-down APCD in Azure cloud to determine its feasibility. The result of this project will be to arm WHA with the knowledge to make informed decisions on the best APCD hosting option.

People love meeting new friends. There are some applications in current market that can help people to date strangers. They are effective in some ways, but target users are limited and the matching and scheduling process is not efficient enough. In order to provide a better service to the users, we created an application that can both simplify user operations and provide more ways to meet new friends. Improvise is a Mobile application working on iOS platform that can help users to meet new friends sharing mutual interests. The best part of using Improvise is that users can skip the boring process of filling out long profiles and scheduling a formal date after slow matching. Just send out an invitation or accept one in a finger flip, your new friends, who listen to same interest channel, may already wait for you outside the tennis court when you park your car.