As a final project, Emerging Digital Academy students collaborate with non-profits within the Fargo-Moorhead community who are looking to solve business problems by building a properly scoped and designed web application.
For each cohort, Emerging Digital Academy selects 3 to 4 pro-bono client projects for our students to work on. These projects are meant to be interesting, challenging, and properly scoped with our instructors to ensure that the students can achieve success under the constrained timeline and appropriate expectations. The projects are designed, built, and tested by our students and ultimately handed off to the client upon graduation.
Three Conway Cohort students partnered up with the local nonprofit, Furniture Mission of the Red River Valley, to help strengthen their digital operations. Mitchell Scott, Jamie Naasz, and Milton Fernandez are utilizing their skills to support the nonprofit’s mission of connecting furniture and household items with individuals and families in their time of crisis and challenge.
The Furniture Mission of the Red River Valley accepts gently-used furniture donations and regift the furniture to individuals coming out of a crisis. The nonprofit currently faces technical challenges with requests, storage, and pickup operations. The student group is enhancing the digital components of the organization so they can manage requests, communication, and appointments through an optimized digital portal.
The students are working on automating the organization’s current system by collaborating with the nonprofit’s referral partners. These individuals will enter information in a donation form, notifying staff and clients about approved requests and appointments that need to be made. The client will then call and schedule the appointment, and the staff will have an up-to-date status of appointments and pickup times for the furniture.
Group members working with the non-profit are continuing to move forward with their solo projects during this time as well. Mitchell is creating an automatic camera system for zip liners. Jaime is creating an application for bicycle companies that tracks bicycle repairs and maintenance. Milton is designing a web-based program for learning foreign languages.
Join us virtually on Tuesday, April 6th at 12 pm to hear the students give their Client Presentations. Learn more about the event here.
