Emerging from the original 120 teams that competed, the winning team — Shreya Joy and Brian Brutocao, both information and technology systems (ITS) seniors; and Srivani Ganapavarapu and Shriya Jejurkar, who both graduated in December with a bachelor’s in ITS — created a tool for the police department to contribute to its data analysis for its response process. The team had been given simulated data for the challenge.
Leigh Johnson, director of information technology for the town of Prosper, elaborated for attendees of the town hall meeting on the team’s challenge. “…This was a semester-long program where in this case two student teams took on two projects for the town that we proposed, one for the fire department, one for the police department,” he said. “They did some data analysis, dashboarding, leader boarding for us that’s going to really help us out in terms of digging into the data…”
Days before, Johnson explained just how much of an effect the team’s work can have.
“It can help us look at everything from how long it takes on an emergency call to get an apparatus rolling to what shift is doing better than other shifts in terms of speed,” he said.
Rob Stogsdill, a lecturer at the Jindal School and a mentor in the UTDsolv Senior Capstone Program, was excited about the students’ accomplishment, not just from the Jindal School’s perspective but also as a Prosper resident.
“Every moment counts when it comes to a response,” said Stogsdill, a technology director at State Farm. “This work that they’ve done could save lives. That this is going to help with emergency response times is incredible — this has a chance to reduce response times to accidents by seconds or even minutes. The team exceeded expectations by building a fully functioning application. The way that they built it makes it easy to read — click and pull and see this emergency. You can pull month-by-month, year-by-year for statistical analysis, you can get helpful charts — there are just so many ways to look at the information and it’s really powerful.”
Stogsdill solicited projects from industry contacts and one of them was Leigh Johnson.
“He mentioned police and fire and the possibility there,” Stogsdill said. “When the team first started meeting with him, he asked them to focus on research and development. They did the research he asked them to do, they built up a prototype and went beyond that with the application. They can put this on top of different files — whether CSV, Excel and more — and it will draw that information from those files to provide that data visualization.”
Mayor David Bristol read a proclamation at the town hall meeting, including this snippet: “…The collaborative projects undertaken by the bright minds of UTD senior students have contributed significantly to the betterment of our community, bringing fresh perspectives and cutting-edge solutions to complex local issues…”
Mayor Bristol also asked to hear from students from the winning team.
“For me, it was a great way to leave an impact on the university…” said Joy, slated to graduate this semester with a degree in Information Systems and Technology, at the meeting. “We got to use the knowledge that we learned in our previous classes and apply it for this project…”
Said Brian Brutocao: “…I want to thank Leigh for letting us tour the police station and fire department. It gave a personal connection to the whole project…”
Later, students reflected on the experience, expressing their amazement and appreciation, along with their excitement at creating something that has the potential to have such a positive effect.
Brutocao, who has a goal of working in data analytics or business analytics after graduation, was elated.
“I don’t think any of us really expected this,” he said. “This is a whole different level of recognition.”
Shriya Jejurkar looks at it as a key highlight.
“When I first received the email saying that we were going to be invited to the town council (meeting), I’ve never had an experience like this in my life,” she said. “…It’s an honor to be here…”
At the UTDsolv Capstone Expo in December, teams had pitched before four judges.
“I jumped, I was so ecstatic…” remembered Jejurkar, who shared that she is starting a job with Protiviti in April after undergoing an internship with them this past summer. “It was a really good feeling to be able to be recognized, first place, for something you worked on as a team.”
Srivani Ganapavarapu, now a graduate student in information technology and management at the Jindal School, was very grateful to the town of Prosper.
“…I never would have thought if you’d asked me back in August, you’d be recognized by the mayor and you’d have a proclamation and you’d be here. I never would have believed it,” she said.
For the project, Ganapavarapu said getting more experience in SQL and Power BI, the main two programs she used, was valuable.
“I had an internship last summer and I used Power Bi in that and I think this made me even more equipped to deal with Power BI,” she said. “And now next summer for my internship I already told them about what I did here…And they are already intrigued in getting me into working with projects in that area, too.”
Ganapavarapu’s previous internship was with Metrolink, her upcoming summer internship is with PwC and she feels she gained strongly from the responsibility of this capstone experience.
“It’s the first project where we took a lead,” she said. “Because when you’re interns…our advisor can help us, tell us what to do, push us in that direction. The goal of this was for us to take charge.”
Dr. David Parks, a professor of practice in the Jindal School’s Operations Management Area and assistant dean for Capstone Senior Projects, said that UTDsolv has completed more than 300 projects involving more than 2,800 students during the past three years.
“UTDsolv is a very successful program in JSOM,” he said. “Through the UTDsolv Senior Capstone projects, we have many opportunities for student teams to work collaboratively with businesses and government. The student teams work directly with client companies to help address many types of challenging issues. Through these projects, the students add value for the clients by applying their UTD learnings in real life situations. Often, students bring many innovative approaches in developing alternatives and solutions that are beneficial to their clients.”
