CUSP (Consortium for Smart and

Mobile Phone Apps)Teaching application development,

interacting with industry and academia, and encouraging social entrepreneurship.

Ravi Shankar, PhD, MBA, PE, Fellow (AHA)Professor, College of Engineering and Computer Science

Francis X McAfee, MFAAssociate Professor, College of Arts and Letters

Don Ploger, PhDAssociate Professor, College of Education

Michael Harris, PhDChair and Associate Professor, College of Arts and Letters

Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL

Goals and ObjectivesGoal: Build an infrastructure to secure NSF fundingProcess with CUSP: (Consortium for smart phone and Mobile Apps)

– Facilitate teaching collaboration across disciplines– Use state-of-the-art technologies, topics, and open source tools– Reward collaborators with funds from Apps marketed– Seed collaborative research from such funds– Apply to NSF and get funded– Repeat every year with 1 to 2 other groups– Extension: Involve multiple universities

Potential Results at our university: – Increased institutional funding, enrolment, quality of

education & research, innovation, and prestige

Success Stories (past three years)

• Several Multidisciplinary courses: – Android Apps– ~360 High school, UG, Grad, Engineers– Robotics - ~45 UG and Grads; 15 High school (Sp’12)– Semantic Web - ~40 Grad students

• Steve Jobs’ way: Integrate technology, art, humanities, business, innovation, research, and education, as appropriate

• Key Additions: Use all open source tools; leverage university infrastructure; and market Apps to raise revenue for authors & university

1. ESP Course for High School Students (Su 2010)

• Provided high school students chance to learn application development---promotional, artistic, and programming.

• Encouraged entrepreneurship/commercialization.

• 7 Game Apps to be marketed

http://android.fau.edu/

2. Social Impact Games: Engineering Undergraduates Collaboration with Arts & Letters: Anthropology and Fine Arts (Sp’11)

Spring 2012: Four way collaboration, including Business College, and students from four disciplines (65 students)

3. Android Chess Robotics: Undergrads and 9-12Collaborators: Education, Arts & Letters, and High Schools, STEM Focus

http://truther2faurobotics.wordpress.com/http://robotics.fau.edu/

Fall 2011: Undergraduate Engineering course on Robotic Art (24) Spring 2012: Mechatronics for high achieving high school students (17)

Kits and Apps

4. Smart Web Applications :

Combining Semantic and Intelligent Web conceptsExample from Fall ‘10: Android Off-Road Trail : Using Geonames

Fall 2011 Apps: Academic and Medical - Focus on helping an individualhttp://fwythedabney.wordpress.com/http://semanticweb.fau.edu/

5. ESP Course (Su ‘11): 30 students (9 High Schools)

 http://vimeo.com/album/1660512

Marketable Applications: 7+

Methodology ( Past 2 years)• Driving Factors: NSF Funding Criteria – Broad Impact, Intellectual

Merit, STEM, Integration of Resch & Education, Diversity, Dissemination, Sustenance, and Assessment, (in addition to a good scientific/technical proposal).

• Strategic Decision made to address these issues and Apply OPP principles (to significantly increase design productivity) developed with Motorola grant. See www.csi.fau.edu

• The experience, however, has been truly rewarding in its own right!

• Teaching: 450 (High school to Graduate) Students & Business --- ‘STEM’ Focus

• App Development: Games, Social Impact, Educational • Others: Chess Robotics, Semantic Web• ALL Open Source Tools: Code/Designs available; community help & service

Methodology (2 years)….• Collaborations: with arts & letters, education, business

• Soon others: nursing, urban planning, and science • Websites (FAU and Student Blog Sites): -- ‘Dissemination’

• android.fau.edu (135K hits), robotics.fau.edu, semanticweb.fau.edu• New – student and team blog sites: free wordpress.com

• Business Ventures: -- ‘Broad Impact’ • 4 Student companies – Engineering & Business Majors; University relationship

(Appstractions, Mobilitude, DroidTroiz, Pathway Media) • 2nd prize in university business competition; FAU Owl Radio; NSF partner; and Video

Clips

• Commercialization: -- ‘ Sustenance’• 14 Apps to be marketed (by Dec ‘12)• Goals: Revenue for the authors and self-sustenance

• Proposals submitted: 4 to NSF (not funded); 1990s: 3 funded• Led to this re-thinking• Now, better infrastructure and higher probability

Proposal• Wish to use my sabbatical leave during Fall ‘12-Sp’13 for this• Build CUSP (Consortium for Smart Phone and Mobile Apps)

• As a multi-university collaboration• Leverage our experience with mobile systems• Help /contribute to building a different type of infrastructure• Replicate courses and multi-college collaborations• Reach out to more high schools, enhance STEM and diversity goals• Build and market Apps; and share revenue with authors• Seed research collaboration of these authors/groups; and submit proposals

• Potential Results: • Submit large multi-institutional proposals on STEM/STEP to NSF/ DoEd -

$2M / 5 years, with PIs: Chairs and Deans• Submit smaller NSF Proposals – in Research, SBIR, Teaching – typical $0.5

M/ 3 years or less• Increased institutional funding, enrolment, positive impact on education &

research, innovation, and prestige

Ravi ShankarPhD, MBA, PE, Fellow (AHA)

• Research Focus: Systems Integration, complex systems, Design Automation, and Biomedical engineering

• Teaching: Computer and electrical engr., computer Science• 5 US Patents: 3 in biomedicine, 2 in computers

– Patent pending: Nearly Decomposable Design, Biomedical

– Royalty received by FAU: $1M (50% of FAU’s total)• Tenure at FAU: 28+ years• Total research cash grants received: $4.2 M (Motorola,

IBM, NSF, Harris, DARPA, Cadence, and Vasocor)• Experienced and successful in grant writing, funding,

innovation, multi-disciplinary collaboration, and training• See: http://www.csi.fau.edu/display/dc/Director

Center for Systems Integration• Formed in 1993 - with funding from Motorola Paging & NSF

• Total funding: $3.5 M from industry and federal sources

• Recent Grants: – OPP (One Pass to Production) from iDEN, Motorola, at $1.1 M– SBA (Small Business Administration) at $123 K

• Current Focus: Mobile, Web, and Complex Systems• Philosophy: Open Source, Multi-Disciplinary Collaboration,

Social Entrepreneurship, industry alliance, and small business formation by our students

• See www.csi.fau.edu, android.fau.edu, robotics.fau.edu, semanticweb.fau.edu