Privacy & IoT Research Exploration Workshops
ProperData’s Annual Summer Program
Overview
In line with our center’s Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) efforts, ProperData has annually developed and offered Research Exploration Workshops on Privacy and Internet-of-Things (IoT) summer programs. Our target audience has primarily been undergraduate students, with a special focus on students from community colleges and underrepresented groups in computer science and engineering, including women, Latinx/Hispanics, Blacks/African Americans, Native Americans, persons with disabilities, and those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. As our research and programming evolves, we are expanding the curriculum (to include new topics such as generative AI), and to address populations beyond undergraduates (2021-22-23) to also include high school students (2024).
Program curriculum is developed from ProperData research, and is delivered by ProperData PIs, scientists, and graduate students. The workshops offer a combination of technical training (e.g., networking, privacy, IoT, voice assistants, algorithms recommendations) and career development and networking opportunities that encourage participants to pursue careers and graduate school in computer science, engineering, data science, or related fields.
Previous Workshops:For Undergraduate Students
Currently accepting applications for our 2024 program:For High School Students
ProperData Workshop on Privacy and IoT │ Summer 2022
Research Exploration Workshop #3, June 20 – June 30, 2023 (in-person, commuter)
In June 2023, ProperData continued to host our two week in-person program at UCI. Seventeen community college students received training on IoT, privacy, network traffic monitoring and ad targeting & personalization research. Students duplicated our curriculum from Workshop 2 and built their own voice assistant devices from scratch on Raspberry Pi (RPi) microcomputers. In addition to voice assistant devices, our curriculum expanded to include modules on understanding the privacy concerns of mobile and web tracking, ad targeting, and personalization when utilizing web and mobile services such as online news sites and social media platforms like TikTok. Students also participated in professional development opportunities throughout our program through faculty and graduate student panels and workshops on college transfer applications.
Research Exploration Workshop #2, June 20 – July 1, 2022 (in person, commuter & residential)
In June 2022, ProperData sponsored a two week in-person program at our UCI campus. Eighteen participants received hands-on training on network traffic collection, web crawling and persona training, and programming on Raspberry Pi (RPi) microcomputers. Participants built their own voice assistant device from scratch by utilizing the MyCroft software and installing skills. In addition to the technical curriculum, students participated in career development opportunities such as panels with faculty + industry professionals and graduate students, workshops on undergraduate research and graduate school admissions, and an industry visit to learn how to program tinyML chips at Syntiant Corp.
Research Exploration Workshop #1 (exploreCSR) May 8, 15, & 22, 2021 (online)
In May 2021, funded through a Google exploreCSR grant, we virtually hosted three four hour long workshop sessions on Saturdays. Sixty participants were exposed to IoT, privacy, mobile systems, and networking research and received hands-on training on Raspberry Pi (RPi) microcomputers. Participants completed a privacy server project they presented and pitched during the last session. In addition to technical programming, students were able to participate in career development opportunities in the form of panels with faculty, graduate students, and industry professionals from Google and Broadcom.