Civic-minded computing

Santosh Vempala loves the precise and clean world of algorithms and complexity theories but thought he ought to try something a little more practical, like helping a neighbor.

Boy, did he succeed.

Vempala, a professor at Georgia Tech’s College of Computing, is the father of a course that turned students loose last year on solving social, medical and business problems here and around the world.

The students in the first Computing for Good class created at no cost a blood safety monitoring system for 14 African nations and a mobile video testimony kiosk in Liberia’s reconciliation efforts after years of civil war.

In Atlanta, they created an after-school learning program for students in a poor neighborhood and a system for the United Way to track, monitor and provide precise aid to those in homeless shelters to help them become independent.

“I have a very strong feeling that technology can be used to improve the lives of people,” said Abhisheak Iyer, the student who developed the tracking program.

So when he read about the class last year, he jumped at the chance to join. The project took him about six months of work.

“It probably would have cost us [$50,000 to $60,000]” to buy such a computer program, said Protip Biswas, the executive director for the Regional Commission on Homelessness. “Sometimes, student projects are great, but they don’t really result in applications that can be used in the field.”

Vempala had discussed the idea for the tracking program with Biswas after bumping into him at a playground where they had taken their children. Vempala said he had a feeling that he ought to do something more useful with his work.

“My field is theoretical computer science,” he said. “There was a disconnect between what goes on in the lab and what people need.”

A question kept nagging him: What would I be doing if I wasn’t doing this? He talked to colleagues, who put their heads together to come up with the class.

Twenty-two students signed up; 17 finished. Speakers came in to explain the problems they faced, and the students began working on the technical challenges.

An officer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention talked to the class about problems tracking blood supplies in Africa. The students created a Web-based program so data can be put in or read from anywhere in the world. The CDC has adopted the program.

Vempala said he was surprised by how effective the student projects are.

“They were clearly inspired,” he said, adding that he thinks this generation of students is more concerned about and willing to get involved in solving social ills than previous ones.

An indicator of that is the list of students signed up for the second Computing for Good class.

“This fall, there will be 45 students, both graduate and undergrad,” Vempala said.