Designing for Real People - App Development

Propose an App Development Project

Imperial College London's Computing students are preparing to embark on their summer term group projects aimed at solving a real-world problem via the development of an innovative web or mobile-based app. We're inviting you to provide a project proposal for such a human-centred real-world problem.

This is an excellent opportunity to have a direct interaction with our students and raise your company's profile among 2nd years.  If you'd like to take up this opportunity, please read the below information and send details of the possible project via this link.  The project leader will then follow up with you if appropriate.

The Projects

The students will work on their projects in groups of four from mid-May until mid-June.  You can find a list of previous projects here.

The Proposals

It’s important to stress that we are only looking for proposals that focus on a specific problem to be solved, rather than proposals to ‘build me this app’.

i.e. please do not include any possible problem solutions in your proposals.

Proposals can be provided by either a 3-minute video or a proposal document (a '1-pager' or flyer/leaflet are suggested). We are also hoping to be able to host a live on-site "elevator pitch" event on the afternoon of WB 18th March, exact date tbc.

Within the proposal you’ll need to:

(a) convey the real-world problem you think could be tackled
(b) identify the specific end-users who experience this problem
(c) describe the specific user needs that the student should address
(d) outline any specific web/mobile platforms you want to target
(e) discuss the ways in which you would support the project
(f) (importantly) your contact details for students wanting to know more

There are a few additional guidelines for the projects that we want you to know about:

• The students receive credit for originality, so your project proposal should allow enough freedom or flexibility for students to be able to have their own input into the finished article.
• Project proposals should focus only on a specific problem to be solved, and not constrain the possible solutions (yes, we said this above, but it is really important not to pitch app ideas, as we won't accept them).
• The project is relatively small scale (development over just 4 weeks) so please don't expect a perfect finished product by the end.
• By default, the students own the copyright over any code that they create during this project, but this can be negotiated at the outset of the project if needed (but we will not support any projects that require an NDA).

Please note we cannot guarantee that students will choose to work on a specific project (and indeed they are also free to propose their own ideas).

Thank you for taking the time to consider submitting a project proposal for the Designing for Real People project.

We look forward to discussing your ideas in the coming weeks!