AE Connects to Google’s Project 10^100

 Aerospace Engineering can boast connections to two finalists in the Google’s Project 10^100 competition that seeks ideas to help the world.

One idea, proposed by Daniel Vidakovich, AE 02, is to create a free, web-based college. The other would develop a wristwatch embedded with a health monitoring system that would let emergency personnel know if the wearer were in medical distress. The latter idea was offered by Tanil Ozkan, a mechanical engineering graduate student that AE Associate Prof. Ioannis Chasiotis advises, and Ozkan’s collaborators, Dr. Ilker Bayer, an AE postdoc, and Onur Ozyesil, a graduate student at Princeton University.

The web-browsing giant wants to celebrate its 10-year anniversary through ideas that can “change the world by helping as many people as possible.” Participants in Google’s 10^100 competition have submitted over 150,000 ideas. Similar ideas among the thousands collected were combined to make 16 final “themes.” Up to five of those could share in the $10 million Google will make available for funding projects. The public can vote for their favorite ideas on Google’s site through Thursday (October 8).

Vidakovich proposed the free, web-based college through his nonprofit organization, Innovative in Education. The project would provide accredited undergraduate degree programs free of charge. Vidakovich drew inspiration from MIT OpenCourseWare, iTunesU and Flat World Knowledge, all resources that provide free educational content on the Internet.

According to Ozkan’s group, the wristwatch can be easily built and integrated to the existing cell phone communication network with current capabilities of sensory electronics and miniaturization. The designers believe the device could let emergency personnel know if the wearer were having an emergency, such as heart attack, even if the wearer were incapacitated.