HumIT is exploring ways that students can provide information technology (IT) infrastructure services for humanitarian open source software (OSS). HumIT is giving students rich and engaging educational experiences while increasing the social benefit of humanitarian OSS.
Open source software is developed collaboratively and provided free to anyone who wants it. Humanitarian OSS applies IT to humanitarian needs in areas such as health care, economic development, and education. But the potential of OSS is limited by the need for IT support. Given that the developers of humanitarian OSS are often volunteers, providing good support is a difficult problem. Students in computing degree programs are an untapped resource that can help address this problem while also advancing the students' own education.
HumIT is creating a new type of practicum in IT education. This approach can improve student learning by directly engaging students with IT issues of large-scale application systems. In addition, HumIT is giving students a first-hand experience in using computing to have a positive impact on society, which may broaden the appeal of IT careers to women. The HumIT approach can be extended across many institutions due to the distributed nature of open source projects and the scope of humanitarian IT needs. Finally, HumIT is creating direct benefit to society by advancing humanitarian OSS while producing more professionally-capable computing graduates.
