The iSchool’s signature Capstone event featured 85 projects from 202 graduating students. Projects were judged to determine which had the most potential for commercialization and social impact. Attendees were encouraged to vote for the audience choice awards. 

Held annually, Capstone showcases the breadth of skills and expertise students develop in the B.S. in Informatics (INFO), M.S. in Information Management (MSIM) and the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) programs.

Students create posters to demonstrate how they use technology, analysis and problem solving as tools to solve information problems for organizations and communities.

Capstone project collaborators include organizations from the public, private and nonprofit sectors, and each project represents a concrete example of what it means to design and build novel applications of technology that meet the needs of people.

More than 600 people attended the event, which was held in the newly renovated Husky Union Ballroom. Award winners receive cash prizes from the iSchool and sponsoring organizations. This year’s sponsors included Adaptive Data, Deloitte, inome, and Yahoo!

Judges included: Rob Arnold, Entrepreneur-in-Residence from UW Center for Commercialization; Nasir Aziz, co-founder and CTO of Adaptive Data; Curt Garner, SVP/CIO Starbucks Corporation; Mala Sarat Chandra, iSchool Lecturer; Thaddeus Zaharas, Senior Manager with Deloitte Analytics; Joshua Blumenstock, iSchool Assistant Professor; David Keyes Community Technology Manager at City of Seattle; Jane Meseck, Director, Citizenship & Public Affairs for Microsoft; and Paul Moulton, EVP/CIO of Costco. 

A Tagboard of the social media tweets and Facebook posts was featured at the event for the first time this year. 

Social Impact Award

First place, $1500 prize: The Neutropenia Clinical Dashboard created by Nic Dobbins, (MLIS)
The Dashboard was developed to provide clinicians and staff at the Severe Chronic Neutropenia International Registry and UW Medicine the tools to accurately and efficiently analyze patient bone marrow, physical development, clinical event, and medication data, and in the process improve diagnosis and care.

Second place, $500 prize: Where to Turn For Teens created by Kacie Grant, Ross Hattori, Dan Laush, Blake Levy, Melissa Parsons, (INFO)
Working with TeenLink, a service of King County’s Crisis Clinic, the team developed a mobile application based on a popular printed guide to mental health and human services resources for youth in King County.

Commercialization Potential Award

First place, $1500 prize: Allergy App created by Alan Chi, Dylan Bussone, Vince Thomas, Omar Farajallah, (INFO)
A mobile Android application which gives grocery shoppers who have food allergies the ability to scan product labels to determine whether they contain harmful ingredients. 

Second place, $500 prize: Fovea created by Sander Vinberg, (MSIM)
Fovea automates the collection and processing stages of security log data from a variety of data sources at a Seattle-based financial software and services company. The software reduces the time needed to analyze data and remediate risks that are uncovered.

Audience Choice Awards, $300 prize to each team

• BucketList created by Tatsuya Matsubara, Ryan Samp, Ankar Sawir (INFO). A social media website that allows people to manage the things they want to do before they die, see friends’ lists, and provide limited-time deals and offers pertaining to users’ lists.
• From Immigration Detention to Unfamiliar Territory: Surviving Post-Release created by Amanda Jasso and Anna Shelton (MLIS). Northwest Immigrant Rights Project sponsored the creation of a website to provide basic information and resources post-deportation to help people stay safe and start over after immigration detention.
• MED Project created by Chaitrali Pimparkar, Mason Wrolstad, Jenna Tollefson, Steven Markham, and Honping Lin (INFO). Working with the J. Lampe Lab at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the team created a software system to manage thousands of samples used in cancer research studies. They used a backend adaptive database that incorporates statistical automation, quality controls, and analytical reporting with front-end forms for accessible data input and manipulation.
• Why Search Twice created by Matt Garrett, Chris Gilbert, Tony Grosinger, Ansel Santosa, and Tim Tan (INFO). A service that takes the underutilized search history data created when people browse the web and creates visualizations of the data so individuals can better understand their online behavior.