Six projects, two days and one cause: creating open-source software to improve the lives of members of the disabled community.
Over the weekend, 40 students participated in “SS12: Coding for a Cause” and created software to enhance the lives of disabled persons. Teams of UCLA students competed for prizes donated by the program’s sponsors: Mozilla, Google, Cisco – a networking equipment supplier – and Lockheed Martin, a global security company. The event was co-hosted by the UCLA Association of Computing Machinery, an undergraduate student organization that focuses on computer science and Project: Possibility, a non-profit organization that develops open-source software to promote handicap accessibility. Open-source software is available online to anyone free of charge and can be modified and improved at any time. During the contest, students worked on cell phone applications and internet plug-ins to close technology gaps the disabled community face. Each team had a mentor, many of them UCLA alumni, who volunteered to provide guidance for the students while they developed the programs. “It’s just a great cause just to be able to use technology and use software, and a lot of the ways it comes together is just a beautiful thing,” said Anthony Aleta, a UCLA alumnus, senior associate business systems analyst at Amgen, Inc. and mentor for the single-day exhibition project. “We’re taking something as simple as trying to manipulate computer graphics ... and now we’re able to make it real, make it tangible.” Students presented their projects Sunday night to a panel of judges, comprised of members who have experience working with the disabled community and others with programming backgrounds. The winning project was “Audio Guardian v. 1.0,” a cell phone application for the hearing-impaired. The phone records surrounding noise and alerts the user when it identifies important noises such as a car horn or a fire alarm. Programming challenges “It was pretty difficult because none of us had ever worked with the programming language before. It took a lot of time to get adjusted to this kind of programming language and working with the new environment,” said Brian Garfinkel, a first-year computer science student who worked on Audio Guardian. Garfinkel said his team was working until 4 a.m. on Sunday because of the difficult mathematics behind the project. Students were allowed to work for as long as they wanted over the course of the two days. “We didn’t even know if it could be done,” said Eric Hertz, a first-year computer science student who also worked on Audio Guardian. “Programming in class, you know it can be done because it’s assigned.” Other projects included “HandiMap,” an application for Google Maps that displays the location of handicap accessible services such as parking spaces and ramps, and “Access Facebook,” a compilation of hotkeys, magnification and screen reading for the visually impaired. Users would be able to use hotkeys to take them directly to their Facebook inbox, for example, rather than having to search through the page, and the screen reader would summarize the text verbally for the users. Zachary Schultz, a fourth-year computer science and engineering student who worked on “Color Reader” said he enjoyed working on something that has a real world impact, as opposed to an assignment from a textbook. Color Reader is an application that would allow a user to take a picture that a cell phone could then read and translate into a color description. The software is aimed toward the colorblind and visually impaired who, for example, can’t differentiate between ripe and unripe fruit. “Project Awe” is a Firefox plug-in that assesses and rates Web sites based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which provide guidance on making content online navigable for those with disabilities. Project Awe would create a database of sites meeting those guidelines. Ongoing projects Because the software is all open-source, it is available to users and to anyone who wants to continue developing it after the competition, usually in a semester-long program also hosted by Project: Possibility. According to Jacquelyn Leong, executive director and vice president of programs of Project: Possibility, the project works closely with Pasadena City College Disabled Student Programs and Services, as well as with the disabled community via online forums for project ideas and feedback. The directors of the group choose project ideas based on what they feel will be most useful to the disabled community. Students signed up for the project they are most interested in. “These (students) are great. They’re all intrepid, fearless young minds,” said “Word Predictor” mentor Michael Parker, vice president of technologies for Project: Possibility and a software engineer for Google. Parker, who participated as an SS12 mentor for the fourth time this year, said he has become personally attached to his project and wants to see it improved. “I like Project: Possibility because it’s a non-profit that’s very, very much catered to my skill set. I’m a programmer. How many non-profits are aimed at programmers?” he said. “Word Predictor” challenged the student team members because rather than designing their own code, they had to learn and work with a code developed in previous SS12 competitions, Parker said. This year, students added an on-screen keyboard with enlarged keys that can be linked with eye-tracking software and phonetic support for spelling errors, as well as contextual predictions for the user. Expanding the competition Jacquelyn Leong said her friend Chris Leong started the SS12 programming competition at USC four years ago while he was working on his masters. He was inspired after designing a project at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to assist a summer intern there who was blind. Jacquelyn Leong said Chris Leong felt closing the gaps in technology for the disabled community was a great cause and put on the first SS12 programming event with the help of friends and co-workers. Because the project was solidified at USC, Jacquelyn Leong decided she wanted to share SS12 with her alma mater this year. “Since I was from UCLA and I was basically in charge of helping run the program, I was like, why should I drive to USC when UCLA is closer? There’s a lot of talent here, and a lot of the people we were calling to help were from UCLA,” she said. Leong said many other universities expressed interest in running the program after the New York Times published an article about Project: Possibility last year. Though the project currently does not have the manpower to do so, the goal is to write guidelines on how to host the program, she added. Nima Nikzad, a fourth-year computer science student and president of the Association of Computer Machinery, said the group is looking forward to putting the event on again next year, and hopes to expand it into a semester-long project. Source: http://dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2009/feb/03/closing-tech-gaps-open-source-fixes/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
