Course organized by students tackles ethics in CS

"Last spring, students in a new computer science social change course developed software tools for a disaster relief organization to teach refugee children about science and technology, a Chrome extension to filter hate speech on the internet and a mobile app to help doctors during a patient visits.

Called CSCI 1951I: “CS for Social Change,” the course — now in its second iteration — was developed for computer science, design and engineering students to discuss and reflect on the social impact of their work while building practical software tools to help local and national partner nonprofits over the 15-week semester.

The course was initially conceived by Nikita Ramoji ’20, among others, who was a co-founder of CS for Social Change, a student organization that aims to addethics education to college computer science departments. “The (general consensus) was that we were getting a really great computer science education, but we didn’t really have that social component,” she said."