Four teams of I Schoolers have been honored by the 2009 Bears Breaking Boundaries contest.
In the Science, Technology, and Engineering Policy (STEP) category, I School students Joshua Gomez, Travis Pinnick, and Ashkan Soltani were awarded the $1,000 third-place award for their KnowPrivacy project. KnowPrivacy seeks to influence policy change regarding data collection and sharing practices employed by popular Internet sites and to make the potential dangers more salient. They are advised by Brian Carver.
In the Information Technology for Society category, I School students Jonathan Hicks and Xiaomeng Zhong were awarded the $8,000 second-place prize for their project, Hyoumanity: Social Search and Incentive Alignment in Health Care. Advised by Tapan Parikh, Hyoumanity addresses the challenge of persistent medical nondiagnosis and misdiagnosis by using technology to match patients seeking a diagnosis with doctors with the expertise to recognize their symptoms.
Professor Tapan Parikh was part of the project team for "Metamouse: Technology to Aid Multiple Users in Sharing Existing Applications", which received a $1,000 honorable mention in the same category. The Squash & Vine project, with I School students, Shawna Hein, Hazel Onsrud, and Aylin Selcukoglu, was also honored as a finalist.
The annual Bears Breaking Boundaries contest is a series of “idea competitions” to encourage student teams to propose the next generation of research, education, and service activities on the UC Berkeley campus. Each contest awards cash prizes to further the proposed work.
