Five Miami University students have developed a new speed-networking application (app) for the Alumni Association for their spring semester capstone project in 2011.
Alumni Kevin Donnelly, Tom Campbell, Harry Talamini and Brenna Anderson, all Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) majors, worked on the "Chatter Hawks" app along with senior graphic design major Jason Walters under the guidance of CSE Professor Jerry Gannod.
Speed-networking allows participants of a social event to meet others in a more expedient fashion. The event facilitator can utilize the app on an iPad and forward its seating arrangements to the event participants.
The app was initially developed to make the Alumni Association's social events run more smoothly, according to Donnelly.
Donnelly and his team developed an algorithm that seats all the participants. As the event continues, the algorithm handles rotations allowing everyone to meet as many people as possible with no seating overlaps.
Donnelly and his team met once a week with Alumni Association member Erin Taute to show updates, mockups and working prototypes.
Donnelly showcased the app in its beta phase at an Alumni Association event in Chicago.
While Gannod helped manage most of the meetings, he left plenty of creative and technical freedom for the team to design the app the way they wanted according to Campbell.
"This was the second semester that we had been working together," Campbell said. "We knew each other all pretty well by then and we knew how each other worked. So we all got along pretty well and everybody got what they needed to get done."
"Chatter Hawks," which seats five people at different tables, works more fluidly than the traditional "speed-dating" format, which typically only allows short one on one meetings and does not maximize the amount of people one can meet, Gannod said.
"We built Chatter Hawks to make sure that you meet as many people as possible, but also to help the facilitator manage the time," Gannod said.
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Gannod said the app is perfect for gathering alumni meetings and for individuals who are new to a city and who want to network and make new contacts, and even for use in the classroom, allowing students to study and network more efficiently.
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