The University of Washington CSE department is offering yet another awesome class that I pounced on thanks to the recommendation by two friends, Jim and Sierra. First they offered a joint class with Google on distributed computing, including topics and projects on Hadoop, MapReduce, GFS, etc. Now I’m taking a class focussed on computing for developing parts of the world. This quarter is focussed on defining a problem and a mechanism for fixing it. Next quarter is focussed on solving that problem by making whatever devices, services, and products necessary for success.

I took this class in direct response to this former post of mine, because now I get a chance to work on a project that might actually help someone who truly needs help.  I’ll describe our project later once we have our heads wrapped around it more.