California State Fullerton hosted their first Engineering Social Justice Competition on campus. It was funded by the Scott-Jewett Fund for Innovation and Student Success. It awarded 1st place $6000, 2nd place $4000, and 3rd Place $2000. The goal of the competition was to present a conceptual solution to solve a social justice issue with engineering and computer science. Teams had to identify a social issue, a solution, and pitch the idea to a panel of judges.
I am a part of an Amazon Fellowship and the group I am decided to compete in the ESJ competition with the goal of trying to solve ADA compliance. ADA compliance is the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 that bans discrimination against Americans with disabilities. We wanted to create a way for disabled individuals to have a better experience inside buildings that didn’t comply with ADA regulations.
We created a website prototype that allowed the public to rate, review, and post pictures of businesses or buildings that were or were not ADA compliant. The prototype was capable of generating revenue through ad revenue, a subscription process, and disability placard placements. We came up with the prototype by interviewing 11 disabled individuals in southern California, and through their stories and experiences we came up the idea of the website.
The prototype was able to have features like our competitors on Yelp, Google Maps, and iAccess life failed to do. We went under the team name AccessSquad and created the OpenDoors website prototype to help the disabled and presentation our solution against 13 other teams in front of judges. After the judges deliberated, we won 3rd place, next to Team Unicorn who won 2nd place for their solution to transgender healthcare. Overall the experience was fun, the judges were tough and intelligent, and winning $2000 was nice.
By Cesar Gutierrez
