During Operation P.E.A.C.E.'s summer session, campers chatted and networked, completed learning assignments and played games using a single Internet portal created by Georgia Tech students.

The Community Classroom portal was an instant hit with kids like Neiman Ugbesia, 10, who loved the one-stop convenience the portal brought to computer activities at the year-round academic program for low-income youth in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward neighborhood.

"I think it's cool you don't have to go to all the Web sites," Ugbesia said. "You can stay in one place."

Operation P.E.A.C.E. —- which stands for Positive Education Always Creates Elevation —- is among the beneficiaries of a new Georgia Tech course, "Computing for Good," that lets students use their computer smarts to produce real-world impact.

"The point is to come up with actual solutions and not just write a paper about it," said computer science professor Santosh Vempala, who co-teaches the class, also known as C4G.

Tech's College of Computing Science program is still rebounding from enrollment dips earlier in the decade, and officials hope the marriage of computer science and social responsibility will help. They think it will draw more students of varied interests to the field, particularly women and minorities.

Since its debut last spring, C4G has launched a string of do-good projects in Atlanta and Africa.

They range from helping improve shelter bed availability in metro Atlanta and monitoring the blood supply in Zambia to a bird-flu information system that lets rural veterinarians in Rwanda, Ghana and Uganda better measure and respond to potential outbreaks.

Vempala was happy to have his class, which provides free help, play a role in putting Operation P.E.A.C.E. more squarely on the information highway.

"They [Operation Peace] were very open to the idea of having this project's assistance and having computers play a role in the children's education ...," Vempala said. "It was as if [the partnership] was pre-made."

Most rewarding for graduate student Tandav Krishna was seeing summer campers' enthusiasm in using their new Web portal.

"At this point, we cannot say for sure that we brought radical social change in these kids, but we hope that we [bridged] the technology gap that exists between them and the rest of the world," said Krishna, 24.

Seventeen graduate and undergraduate students from various majors enrolled in the once-a-year course.

This summer's projects were the result of happenstance, research —- both formal and informal —- and existing partnerships.

Vempala, for example, hooked up with Operation P.E.A.C.E. through his barber and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Regional Commission on Homelessness through chance conversations with people in those organizations.

"You think of all these ideas ... then to have the students explore it for free and come up with some sort of product is super valuable, especially for us with limited resources," said Protip Biswas, the homeless commission executive director.

He hopes to have the new Georgia Tech-designed shelter beds monitoring system up and running this fall.

Mike Best, an assistant professor who along with Computer Science Chairwoman Ellen Zegura also helps teach the class, considers C4G and opportunities like it part of a larger "movement" to see how computer technology can solve some of society's biggest social challenges and help improve the human condition.

"Computing can really be an agent for change and can make a difference in the world," he said. "Students are pushing us to make that link and to move computing out of the laboratory and into the real world."