JumpToPC: Hardware and mobile application for online learning AND practice for low-income students: Creating learning content and/or mobile development

Project Title: JumpToPC: Hardware and mobile application for online learning AND practice for low-income students: Creating learning content and/or mobile development

Term UROP is offered: Spring 2021

Type: Paid ($13.50/hr) or credit (Note: MIT undergraduate students who received their ELO guarantee in Fall 2020 or IAP 2021 are not eligible for financial compensation Spring 2021)

Location: Remote

Supervisor/Contact: Dan Sweeney


Project Description

Most low-income students in developing countries don’t have regular access to a computer. Those that complete school lack the basic digital skills to access good jobs in competitive job markets. With most students at home, the COVID-19 pandemic has further broadened this digital divide. JumpToPC is an affordable and accessible personal computing solution for at-home learning and working. It uses a household’s existing smartphone and television to drastically reduce the cost of an in-home personal computer.

Students involved in this project will develop and catalog appropriate online learning, productivity, and practice content for first-time computer users in India.

Applicants should be willing to communicate weekly with JumpToPC partners and users in India (Boston+9.5 hours) and commit 10 hours per week to the project. This is a great opportunity to apply your engineering and teaching skills to an impactful project!

Compensation

This is a paid UROP opportunity at $13.50/hour with an expectation that the student will spend between 80-140 hours on the project over the course of the semester.

Apply (ideally by February 26, 2021)

Interested candidates should email Dan Sweeney, MIT D-Lab Research Scientist.


Link to opportunity on MIT Elx site