Our project is a bold undertaking that seeks to combat the advent of over-personalization of news feeds and the inability to see the “bigger” picture within news media. These issues can create echo chambers which lead to increased partisanship and the general spread of misinformation. We created a web application that consolidates the news from different outlets to offer a more in depth analysis of the news media. Through this, we provide our users with conceptual visualizations of a developing story, while allowing users to hone in on topics that interest them and allowing for balanced viewpoints amongst these topics.

Millennials have the lowest voter turnout, despite being the 2nd largest generation of voters. Having identified that millennials are largely unsatisfied with their knowledge in local politics, our project addresses bottlenecks in the political education pipeline. We aim to alleviate voting friction for young adults by providing sharable, eye-catching content, that passively informs viewers on relevant political issues. TL;DR is an automated platform that generates succinct, engaging videos from user input. Government officials can input state initiative information, and create videos that display the given data in an engaging, informative manner, that can easily be distributed on social media.

The current methodologies of planning travel are time-consuming, inefficient, and uninspired. To address this issue, our team created a unique web platform that fosters a community of travelers who are able to discover, plan, and share their perfect trip itineraries: Travelroo. Travelroo alleviates the pain points of travel, which will lead to memorable travel experiences and travel inspiration for our users. With the guidance and resources from the iSchool program, our team was able to produce a unique and much-needed trip planning solution in the crowded travel industry.

Successful marketing strategies can be expensive and elusive for startups running on limited personnel and budget. Mistargeted ad campaigns often result in failure, wasting time and resources. Adticipate offers startups a marketing workflow and Facebook ad campaign algorithm combined with machine learning that guarantees predictable results with minimal effort.

We connect people in a meaningful way by taking online dating, offline. AMPR is for those who are tired of mindless swiping and superficial conversations. Our unique date generator plans dates for users based on mutual interests, first date preferences, and individual schedules so they can focus on developing meaningful relationships. We want users to use our product as a tool, not a crutch; that is why we welcome all users, whether they’re looking to meet someone new or discover local spots. Swipe less, date more.

Our capstone project aims at applying advanced machine learning techniques to identify advertisement traffic from the cellular network traffic. The idea behind classifying advertising traffic is relevant in today’s business era where digital marketing has become the predominant medium to increase outreach and connect directly with customers. Our team developed a novel approach to label & predict this advertisement traffic (accuracy ~97%), thereby paving the way for further research into identifying and blocking malicious/spam advertisements. The relevant activities we performed included getting data from network captures, data pre-processing, feature extraction, ad-labeling, applying ML algorithms and evaluating model performance.

The city of Los Angeles consists of a diverse population sprawled over 500sq. miles. One unifying theme throughout the city is its love of artwork; street art has taken over the city, giving each borough its own culture and attitude. Street art defines the attitude of the citizens and presents a message, unlike graffiti, which is used to promote hate and fear. Many have tried to document the art throughout the city, but almost none have been trusted within the communities. Along with the Los Angeles Public Library, I have worked to begin a digital collection available to the public.

Home chefs provide a valuable marketplace for different cuisines in local communities. Consumers are interested in new varieties when deciding on their next meal. Grandma’s House provides a platform for these two communities to meet. Home chefs share their love of cooking, decide their own work hours, and benefit from additional income. Consumers get to experience new cuisines prepared by their local neighbors. Grandma’s House fosters a greater sense of community, because when it comes to food, love is the most important ingredient.

Pinion is a mobile application that gives people a place where they can share their beliefs on civic issues, learn more about them, and see how their elected officials vote. Users can voice their opinions on local topics like the Seattle Jobs Tax or federal ones like gun control. They can also see how their community and elected officials voted to make sure they're acting in the best interests of the people. Pinion will clearly show if there's a gap between the people and their elected officials.