TEAM ASSIGNMENT

Social Computing in 2025

This team assignment seeks to envision new research directions for future social-computing technologies. Students are encouraged to think broadly and freely about how society and technology will interact 10 to 20 years down the road to stretch your imagination of technology into the future, yet to be plausible for the near future.

Your proposal should address some specific or general aspects of how people or society will interact with future social-computing technology. The technological component - hardware, software, or some combination - should be innovative but possible within a 10 to 20 year timeframe. Far-reaching science fiction is discouraged, as are proposed technologies that are simply better versions of what already exists.
Just as important as technological vision is the imagination of plausible social uses (local or global, community-based or institutional, aesthetic or political, etc.). How will new technology affect the society or community that uses it? How will a society or community in turn affect the development of technology? The optimal proposal will be one that makes a case for how technology and society modify each others development.

This is primarily a conceptual project. Your proposal does not need to be implemented as prototype applications, algorithm descriptions, empirical social-science data, etc. The key is: be visionary, but be "real." How will our lives be changed in the next 10 to 20 years through social computing?

Submission

A. Your proposed idea should be typed up, not exceeding 1,500 words. A good description is one that sketches in a well-organized way the main idea behind the technology and social use being imagined and also provides some context (for example, why the suggested technology and social use will be important in 2025 in relation to broader technological or social developments). A description may include no more than one or two illustrations for clarity (other materials may be included in Part B of the submission described below).

B. Imaginative Realization, Embodiment, or Illustration of the Idea: This part of a submission can take many possible forms. Examples (which can be combined) include:

a. An "application sketch" of technology (hypothetical screenshots or design slides of plausible software or devices that need not be backed up by a prototype or demo).

b. A fictional story, script, podcast, or video dramatizing how people will be using social-computing technologies in 2025.

c. An essay or analytical discussion of social computing in 2025.

d. A fictional business plan for a company with a new social-computing technology in 2025.

e. A hypothetical government white paper or legislative study intended to set policy guidelines for social computing in 2025.

f. An imaginary museum exhibition of contemporary art making use of social computing in 2025.

Criteria for Evaluation

This project will be assessed on the grounds of creativity, understanding of technology and society, explanatory clarity and organization in Part A, and quality of the materials in Part B. Criteria for judging do not include marketability vs. non-marketability, or general-audience vs. specific-audience relevance. For example, an excellent, brilliantly realized imagination of future social-computing technology for a subset of the population (e.g., children aged 10 to 13, rural populations in industrializing nations, the disabled, research scientists, the medical profession, etc.) that has the potential to be a paradigm for how other technologies might be developed for other specific groups would be a good proposal.