Systems for Greater Good

Course Project

Teams of 3–5 students tackle a public-interest systems challenge over the full semester. Projects may be proposed by students, assigned by the instructor, or brought in by external partners, and may involve collaboration with industry, nonprofit, or civil-society organizations.

Scope Requirements

All projects must meet the following scope requirements:

• Address a real, documented public-interest need—not a hypothetical or toy problem.
• Involve a meaningful adversarial component: a threat actor, regulatory constraint, or hostile operating environment.
• Produce a working prototype capable of deployment or handoff to a partner organization.
• Include complete deployment documentation: architecture diagrams, threat model, operational runbook, and impact assessment.
• Conclude with a public demonstration open to invited partners, faculty, and the broader university community.

Deliverables

The project is assessed through two written deliverables and two presentations, in addition to ongoing class performance. Weights are listed in the grading breakdown.

Proposal Write-up

Due Monday, Oct. 12 at 12:00 PM (noon). Use the course LaTeX template. The proposal must contain:

• A clear problem statement: the public-interest need, who is affected, and the adversarial or hostile conditions the system must operate under.
• Clear related work: existing systems, tools, and research that address the problem, and where they fall short.
• A clear contribution: what your system does that existing work does not, and how success will be measured.
• Clear steps and a timeline: the concrete milestones from proposal to final prototype, with dates and owners.

Proposal Presentation

In class on Wednesday, Oct. 14. Each team presents its proposal and defends its problem statement, threat model, and plan before the instructors and external reviewers.

Final Project Write-up

Due Sunday, Dec. 6 at 11:59 PM. The final report, written in the same LaTeX template, covering the delivered system: architecture, threat model, evaluation against the success criteria set in the proposal, known limitations, and the deployment documentation and impact assessment described under scope requirements.

Final Project Presentation

In class on Monday, Dec. 7. A talk and live demonstration of the final prototype.