Course: Computer Science Ethical and Professional Issues
Institution: University of Notre Dame
Faculty: Megan Levis Scheirer

Assignment: Building Hope

Imagine yourself five years into your career. Maybe you’ve job-hopped. Maybe you’re at the same company that you have an internship offer or return offer from. Maybe you’ve built up a really cool startup and are working towards an IPO.

Write down the role and the company you think you’ll be at five years into your career, be specific about title and level.

You’re chatting with your boss after an all-hands and your supervisor says:

“You know how we just got in trouble for selling user data to a third party without properly encrypting it? The higher-ups tasked our team with building something ‘good’ to refute our image as ‘evil corp.’ 

(Yes, this is usually where the call comes from, and yes, they will use air quotes.) 

“We need to build in a new feature, some sort of social tool that does something that is truly a force for good in the world: what should we build and why?”

Write a high-level pitch to your bosses about a functionality to add to your system or a cool side project that will show the public the power potential for tech to be good. 

You can work together, but each student needs to turn in a pitch that includes enough info for your supervisor to pitch it to their higher-ups.