

CS90SI – CS+Social Good is being taught at Stanford starting September 2015 - ManuMaverick

Although Stanford is renowned across the world for being a center of technology and innovation, never has there been a unified and coordinated effort at Stanford to organize and connect students to take action and collaborate on the world’s most pressing problems. We’re here to change that – CS+Social Good is Stanford’s first student group focusing on the intersection of computer science and social impact.<p>We realized that many students would love to contribute to social good projects, but may not have the guidance or technical knowledge to do so. After seeing how much interest and demand existed surrounding tech for good on Stanford’s campus and outside, we’re offering a new class – CS+Social Good: Using Web Technologies to Change the World. This class, CS90SI, will be taught at Stanford by our team this fall and will be a unique environment where students can learn web technologies by working on real world projects focused on creating positive social change.<p>Project partners like Google, LaborVoices, SIRUM and Delhi Government will support students as they work on small teams to implement high-impact projects. From creating ‘aha’ learning moments for students to matching pharmacies with surplus medications, students will learn and leverage technology to truly build for good and impact hundreds of millions of people. Amazing speakers, social entrepreneurs, and humanitarians like Jane Coyne, a board member of Doctors without Borders, Laura Arrillaga Andreessen, one of the world&#x27;s most famous philanthropists, will visit the class to share their inspiring stories.<p>You can learn more about the class at cs90si.stanford.edu. Videos of the class will also be put online on the website. You can keep a tab of our updates on our updates page at cs90si.stanford.edu&#x2F;blog&#x2F;index.html and follow us on Twitter at @cs90si<p>Thanks, Manu Chopra (Class Instructor)
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ManuMaverick
Videos of the class will be put online. Would love to hear more feedback on
the class and better ideas to use CS for social good :)

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jason_wang42
Love the idea of students working on these projects. How do you make sure what
students build actually gets used in the real world? My assumption is that a
lot of this work sounds great but rarely gets used by the target audience.

Looking forward to seeing the videos!

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ManuMaverick
That's an excellent point. We intentionally partnered with organizations who
are in the field and releasing products. Be it Delhi Government or Google,
They all have a lot of experience of releasing these products. Students in the
class will help our project partners in the technical aspect of the project
instead of designing completely new projects (which would take a lot more time
and research). Students will also be meeting the partners every week to
discuss their progress.

You are absolutely right when you say that a lot of this work rarely gets used
by the target audience. We are hoping to change that :)

