When the suggestion for a course designing iPhone applications was put in at the University of Saskatchewan, no one predicted it would have three students working with an investor in only four months.
“One of the TAs thought [the course] was going to be a disaster,” said Chad Jones, the professor who created the class.
One of the applications, created by second-year computer science student Jennifer Geddes, has found an investor that will provide Geddes with the money she needs to improve her application. Her original game is called “Spinks Quest” and is a point-and-click adventure in which the user is a student trying to hand in an assignment at the U of S’s Spinks Building. The object of the game is to get past the many obstacles preventing one from handing in the assignment – including Spock in the elevator.
A past Apple employee, Jones introduced the idea through summer workshops. It was not until this September that the university decided to implement software design for smartphones as a full-credit course.
Jones, along with fellow professors Eric Neufeld and Ralph Deters, teaches the students the basics of creating iPhone applications. Students are then given an open-ended assignment which asks them to design any kind of application they would like.
Three students managed to not only create something they liked, but something that also interested businessman and investor Michael Sikorsky. A board member and investor for Ph03nix New Media’s iPhoenix fund, as well as the owner of the company Robots and Pencils, Sikorsky saw opportunity in what the students had come up with. The fund, which has the goal of creating 133 iPhone applications over the next three to five years, will fund Geddes’ project.
Sikorsky said he was interested in Spinks Quest because it had personality and, “kept me smiling the whole time.” Though it will need to be edited in order for it to appeal to a broader audience, he believes it will be successful.
“I don’t want to touch stuff that I think will make money, I want stuff that people want,” he said about his recent investments.
Another such application Sikorsky believes falls under this category was designed by graduate students Ryan Ukrainetz and Fred Buschau. The long-time friends are working professionals with degrees in computer science, but decided to take the course in their spare time. Their application is a program which allows doctors and other medical professionals to quickly figure out diagnoses for patients using reference material and statistics. A doctor can check with the application to see which symptoms are present and which are not, aiding in a quick and accurate diagnosis.
This application is going to be invested in by Sikorsky’s business Robots and Pencils. Sikorsky said the students will be potentially making thousands of dollars.
Geddes as well as Ukrainetz and Buschau already have design ideas for similar applications in the future.