5 Civic Projects Aim To Make Data Useful

How can we use data to improve our lives, our communities, and the world at large? At the recent Microsoft Design Expo, students from eight universities showcased design projects along the theme of “making data useful.”

To prepare for the Design Expo, students take a semester-long course, in connection with a liaison at Microsoft Research. The best projects were then selected for presentation here at Microsoft. I’m an intern this summer at Microsoft Research Fuse Labs and was present for the presentations. This blog post was co-authored by Andrés Monroy H and other contributors online.

Note: since this is a design expo, many of these presentations are concept pieces or still in prototype stage. To see all the projects, including an amazing animated digital performance on the surface of the Walt Disney Center in L.A., see the full list of inspired designs on the Fuse Labs blog.