The CoCreate program is an interdisciplinary, project-based course at Alfaisal University in which small teams of students work closely with a person with a disability in the Riyadh area to design a software solution, piece of equipment, mobile application, embedded system or other solution that helps them live more independently. Over the course of a twelve-month timeframe, each team meets with their client, iterates through multiple prototypes, and learns about the challenges and realities of designing assistive technologies for people with disabilities. The program is aligned with multiple courses in the Software Engineering program at Alfaisal University’s College of Engineering ranging from the first-year ethics course, titled ‘Software and Society’ in the Spring semester to the summer enrichment programs and ending with the senior level advanced AI courses in the Fall semester of the calendar year. In January of every year, the program hosts an exhibit to showcase the projects for the graduating cohort of the previous year and to welcome the incoming cohort of Co-designers and developers for the new batch in the CoCreate program. The program is under the umbrella of the Human-Computer Interaction HCI Design Lab in Alfaisal’s AI Research Center.
The technical courses that align with the Cocreate program have a lecture component covering many aspects of software design and development, and a project component in which small teams of students identify an individual within the local community with a need for a technology solution, and work with that individual to understand the need and develop a prototype assistive device. Examples of projects showcased on Jan 30, 2023 include a refreshable tangible interface for the blind to make images more accessible for people with visual impairments by Amaan Zubairi, Dalal Aldossary and Raghad Alsagga as well as a voice bank for people with motor neuron disease (MND) designed by Mohammed Alalem, Eisa Jokhdar and Saud Alhoshan.
In the CoCreate program, faculty, staff and program coordinators network extensively with local entities such as user groups, commercial firms, and government organizations to help understand needs, define projects, and evaluate progress in the product development lifecycle. The learning objectives for courses that consider the CoCreate program for their project component include understanding the social and environmental context in which software design and development will be conducted and completing a thorough exploration of the design space through research, sketches, early idea generation and iterative user-centered prototyping. The program culminates in an annual exhibit in which teams showcase a polished and functional final prototype, learning from their client and previous design iterations.
