Audience Tools

Capstone 2012 winners impress judges

The largest iSchool Capstone event on record took place May 31, featuring 78 projects from 167 students in the Informatics, MSIM and MLIS programs.

In its ninth year, the event showcases student work by featuring 'lightning presentations' (30 second project introductions) and poster displays. More than 650 people attended the event, held in the UW Tower.

Capstone is a required final project for graduating students in the undergraduate Informatics program, Master of Science in Information Management (MSIM), and Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS). Students identify an information problem in a real-world setting and develop the means to address it.

Projects can be research-oriented or design-oriented and the end product is something that may be implemented and used. Collaborators include organizations from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.

All Capstone projects are judged by industry experts and iSchool faculty, with prizes awarded to those showing the highest commercial potential and the greatest opportunity for positive social impact. The audience also votes for their favorites. This year's winners include:

  • 2012 Social Impact Award: PocketChange: A Firefox extension for microdonations with Aaron Emde, Ryan Harrison and Colleen Salmi. Runner up: Two Goals iPhone app for healthy habits with Deepak Balachandar, Jackson Chang and Shane Wachirawutthichai.
  • 2012 Commercial Potential Award: Alvarium Hive security software with Gigi Gillie, Zach Griswold, Chris Mathews and Andrew McKenna. Runner up: DealStream with Ryan Malone, Haoyi Yang, Cheng Hao Chuang and Xiao Luo.
  • Audience Favorite Awards: Mind Cloud with Ramji Enamuthu, Zarya Faraj and Ali Fathalian; Costco Android Ap with Priyanvada Barve, Sampanna Kulkarni and Rahul Mode; Competitive Advantage with Joel Smith and Anna Leung; and vTracker with Bryan Dosono, Walton Huynh, Kenneth Liu and Wilson Lu.

Mike Crandall, iSchool senior lecturer and MSIM program chair, developed Capstone for the first graduating class of the executive MSIM program in 2003. At the time, Crandall was at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the curriculum needed a culminating experience that fit the needs of the working professionals who were enrolled in the program.

Capstone was conceived as a practice-based demonstration of their new knowledge, using cases in the real world to show what they had learned from their education. Today, all of the iSchool programs have implemented this approach to integrate theory and practice.

The event is sponsored by Intelius and Yahoo!