08-04-2009

TechBridgeWorld in Tanzania

Three Carnegie Mellon University students are returning to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, Aug. 4, after a 10-week internship in Tanzania, where they joined a recent alumnus of Carnegie Mellon’s Qatar campus to work on technology projects benefiting underserved communities. The four interns and an additional recent graduate from Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh campus worked on three projects, including a mobile phone application for use by social workers to track information on services provided to AIDS orphans and vulnerable children; an educational literacy cell phone game for use in a school without electricity; and introduction of a low-cost Braille Writing Tutor for visually-impaired students. A student based in Pittsburgh also provided support throughout the internship.

The students were participating in a newly launched internship program called iSTEP (innovative Student Technology ExPerience) introduced by Carnegie Mellon’s TechBridgeWorld research group.

All four Pittsburgh students who participated in the internship will be available for interviews. Contact Byron Spice at 412-268-9068 or Ermine Teves at 412-268-1289 to set up times.

Byron Spice