Buddies Without Borders

Buddies without Borders won second place in the Significant Social Impact category. They won a total of $2,500. Team members include Tugba Arsava (Graduate, Community Social Psychology), Burhan Colak (Graduate, Civil Engineering), Katherine Cox (Freshman, Psychology), Madeline Ormazza (Sophomore, Business), Shashank Raghuveer (Graduate, Computer Science), and Fang Zhang (Graduate, Chemistry).

The Buddies without Border project aims to bridge the gap between domestic students and international students starting with an in-person pair up then followed by a comprehensive website that allows members to define their profiles and micro-blog by text, photo, and video sharing. The rich, thematic profile page will help students find their "best friends", "kindred spirits" or just "friends with common interests". The micro-blogging page called "WE-BLOG" will create a vibrant platform with instantaneous sharing, which provides an online cross-cultural communication and knowledge exchange. Moreover, BwB will help some offices and departments cooperate towards working on their common goals by facilitating relationships, which have already been initiated.