This fall Duke is re-envisioning the future of mobile -- with the help of students in its Innovation Co-lab.
The co-lab, a "creativity incubator" organized by Duke's Office of Information Technology (OIT) and Center for Instructional Technology, is challenging students to help develop the next generation of its DukeMobile application, with project submissions due Oct. 4.
Read More"Duke was one of the first universities to develop a mobile presence four years ago. This is a great opportunity to refresh our mobile strategy and approach and infuse it with student creativity," said Tracy Futhey, the university's chief information officer and vice president for information technology.
The Innovation Co-Lab -- which is sponsored by the offices of the President, the Provost and the Executive Vice President and Duke's Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative -- has organized a series of challenges aimed at encouraging students to use technology to improve life at Duke, said Michael Faber, IT innovation manager.
"A core mission of the co-lab is to connect students with Duke technological resources and also the people and expertise behind those tools for mentorship and assistance," Faber said. "For this challenge, we’re connecting them with OIT engineers who have been working on various aspects of DukeMobile and providing access to the tools and data behind it for developing their projects."
Students are excited about the opportunity.
Manoj Kanagaraj, a second-year undergraduate studying biology and computer science, had done some coding previously but was inspired to learn more about web and mobile application development after he found about the co-lab.
"The mobile challenge gave us an incentive to create a useful tool for our school and also provided us with an unbelievable amount of advice, resources and support to help us innovate," Kanagaraj said.
Along with fellow student Roger Zou, he is developing an application that centralizes office hours for students and instructors on campus.
"Duke has tons of talented students with great ideas, and I believe that the co-lab is integral to fostering entrepreneurship and collaboration for anyone interested, ranging from students who have no experience to those seeking to fine-tune nearly completed projects," Kanagaraj said.