The Multimedia Lab, working with the Office of Service Learning (Career Center), reaches out to campus entities and off-campus non-profits to try to find software development opportunities for Benevolent Computing teams. Agencies we have worked with in the past include:
Cleary School for the Deaf
Smithtown Animal Shelter
WTC Health Project
Response of Suffolk County
Sunshine Prevention Center
EAC Network
Island Harvest
LI Against Domestic Violence
Boy Scouts of America
Toys of Hope
Global Innovation Team
Stony Brook Food Pantry
Career Closet
HeadStart
The agencies working with the lab vary from year to year. Students are encouraged to explore on their own for a suitable project, drawing on experiences they have had doing service projects, or involvement with campus clubs and agencies. The principle criteria is that the affected population have a defined disadvantage (economic, disability, discrimination) or that the application serves a general public good (libraries and museums, voting rights, conservation). Many applications that are useful (GPA calculators) or convenient (food service kiosk) simply fail to rise to this criteria.
The types of projects vary widely, from developing client-server applications that collect and share data, to educational applications, data analysis and visualization, to web site development.
The resources page on our site has links to facilitate independent research into suitable term projects.