Grad Students in 3 Degree Programs Make Their Pitch to Industry at Interactivity 2018

Feb 2, 2018

Graduates from three different degree programs participated in Interactivity 2018 on Thursday, pitching themselves and their research to potential employers in the annual One-Minute Madness and poster session at the Historic Academy of Medicine in midtown Atlanta.

One hundred and thirty-six students participated in the event, pitching to at least 150 industry guests from 75 different companies. Students from the MS-HCI, MS-Digital Media, and MS-Industrial Design degree programs participated in the event.

“This event is such a great opportunity for our students to get in front of real industry people who are here to hire somebody,” said School of Interactive Computing Professor of the Practice and MS-HCI Program Director Richard Henneman, who leads the event.

And even for those who aren’t hiring, Interactivity is a great opportunity for related industries to stay connected with some of the best and brightest young minds coming through the academic ranks.

“We’ve had some who aren’t hiring, but come just because they want to get to know our students and the interesting research they are engaged in,” Henneman said. “That’s the kind of reputation these students have.”

Interactivity is presented by the GVU Center and sponsored by Mailchimp. GVU Director Keith Edwards expressed his affinity for the event during an announcement at the beginning of the One-Minute Madness session.

“This is one of my all-time favorite events,” he said. “I think you’ll be so impressed by the originality, but most of all by the quality of the work.”

Some of the work this year included:

• A method to reveal criminal activities by visualizing the transportation trajectory of human trafficking,
   
• an MS-HCI student with an affinity for screenwriting who recently worked on a project to improve the purchase experience of clothes in retail stores for individuals in wheel chairs,
   
• and others who had worked on story development and prototyping of novel virtual reality concepts, among others.

Resumes of the participating students can be found online here. For photos from the event, go to this album on the College of Computing’s Fickr feed.