CServeS: Computing in Service to Society

CServeS (pronounced "serves") showcases some of the outreach/societal projects and activities that are being developed and implemented in the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science.

	Assistive Technology & Accessibility. This class will focus on computer accessibility, including web and desktop computing, and research in the area of assistive technology. Students will be expected to do service work with non-profits serving the local disability community during one to two weekends of the start of the semester. This course (05-899 section J) has a project component, where students will design, implement, and test software for people with disabilities. Contact person: Jen Mankoff, jmankoff @cs.cmu.edu
	The Center for Appalachian Network Access (CANA) is a philanthropic effort based in the School of Computer Science. CANA's mission is assist underserved Appalachian communities acquire and use high speed internet access. CANA has projects in WV and SW PA where we send teams of CS faculity and students to install the network and perform community outreach and education.
	Project LISTEN is developing an automated Reading Tutor that listens to children read aloud. The Reading Tutor adapts Carnegie Mellon's Sphinx-II speech recognizer to analyze the student's oral reading. The Reading Tutor responds with assistance modelled in part after expert reading teachers, but adapted to the capabilities and limitations of the technology. Though not (yet) a commercial product, the Reading Tutor is being used daily at elementary schools to test its effectiveness.
	Ph.D. program in Computation, Organizations and Society (COS) The past decade has seen a tremendous increase in both the breadth and the complexity of computational systems society has come to rely on. This increase in turn is giving rise to a number of new and challenging societal, management and policy issues, which themselves often call for new technological innovations. Examples include digital rights management, social interaction management, data privacy technology, electronic market mechanisms, dynamic social network modeling, etc. Attacking these new problems requires a deep understanding of computation and of the interplay between the managerial, personal and policy networks in which technology operates. The Ph.D. Program in Computation, Organizations and Society (COS) prepares students to be tomorrow's leaders in constructing software that is accountable to society, business, policy, and law. As part of constructing such computational technology, students engage in evaluating and understanding the implications of technology with respect to social, corporate, legal or policy concerns. The result is technology that is easier to adopt and more responsible to the environment in which it operates. The result is an improved understanding the complex socio-technical world that we inhabit.
	The TechBridgeWorld innovates and implements technology solutions to meet sustainable development needs around the world through strong collaborations with partners in developing communities. TechBridgeWorld offers courses, independent studies, internships, and seminars in which students, faculty, and staff can participate.