Archive for March 31st, 2011

 

IOM-NAE Health Data Collegiate Challenge

March 31st, 2011

IOM-NAE Health Data Collegiate ChallengeEarlier this year, the NAE and IOM, along with Health 2.0, announced a challenge for college students throughout the U.S., to create new apps or tools that use large quantities of newly available health data:

Using social networking, mobile apps, and other new technologies, how can the power of health data be unleashed to increase awareness of health problems and inspire positive action at the community level?


Are you motivated to improve our nation’s health? Using new and fun technologies you can make a difference. Interactive tools and apps, tapping into vast amounts of newly available health data, now can be used in engaging and empowering ways to lead to better health.

 

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of the National Academies invite college and university students to participate in an exciting, new initiative to transform health data into effective, innovative new applications (apps) and tools that take on the nation’s pressing health issues. With reams of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data and other health data newly available as part of the Health Data Initiative (HDI), students have an unprecedented opportunity to create interactive apps and other tools that engage and empower people in ways that lead to better health. Working in interdisciplinary teams that meld technological skills with health knowledge, the IOM and NAE believe that college students can generate exciting and powerful new products—the next “viral app”—to improve health for communities and individuals.

Prizes will be awarded to the top three entries, including $3,000 to first place.

A key requirement is that data from the HHS Health Indicators Warehouse must be integrated into submitted products.

We’re about a month away from the deadline; submissions are due April 27!  Winners will be announced at the next forum of the next forum of the Health Data Initiative, scheduled for June 9, 2011, in Bethesda, MD.

The challenge announcement is here, and full details — including judging criteria — are available here.

(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director)

No comments »

Posted in research horizons

A CIFellow’s Perspective: “Becoming a Better Researcher”

March 31st, 2011

Susan P. Wyche | 2010 CIFellow | Virginia TechThe following is a special contribution to this blog from Susan P. Wyche, a 2010 CIFellow working with Steve Harrison at Virginia Tech.  Susan received her Ph.D. in Human-Centered Computing from Georgia Tech in 2010; her dissertation advisor was Beki Grinter.  Click here for more details about the CIFellows Project.

During his presentation at the CIFellows Research Meeting & Career Mentoring Workshop in December, Microsoft’s Peter Lee shared his motivations for creating the program. Beyond giving recent PhDs an opportunity to remain in academia during a time when obtaining an academic job is more difficult than usual, he saw the program as a way to “create a cadre of highly independent computing researchers.” I am currently a first-year CIFellow in Virginia Tech’s Computer Science Department, and I describe how this program is helping me to achieve what Peter intended, i.e., to be an “independent computing researcher.”

I conduct research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), a subfield in computer science that broadly focuses on studying, planning and designing interactions between people and computers. My current research addresses two frequently cited problems in HCI: (1) how to integrate design thinking into computer science and (2) how to identify and break out of the Western values embedded in technology design. To address these problems I am first conducting human-centered research examining how technology supports communication, economic exchange and connectedness between African immigrants in the U.S. and their families, friends and co-workers living in sub-Saharan Africa. Then, based on this research and in collaboration with design and computer science students, I will build technology interventions grounded in my empirical findings.

Virginia Tech is an ideal place to carry out this project because there is an established HCI program in the university’s computer science department, a strong industrial design program, faculty whose interests mesh with mine, and a campus environment that values and supports interdisciplinary collaboration. The CIFellows Project gives me freedom to take advantage of what Virginia Tech has to offer, carry out my own research and engage in other activities that will make me more competitive when the time comes to seek permanent employment.

» Read more: A CIFellow’s Perspective: “Becoming a Better Researcher”

1 comment »

Posted in CIFellows