The project’s objective is to generate public awareness of political issues related to voting districts.  The students proposed a mathematical algorithm to automatically redistrict regions using census data. A project of Georgia Tech eDemocracy, Project Redistrict, has the long-term goal of constructing an intuitive website that redistricts areas based on parameters such as population equality, density and contiguity.

“The team worked very hard throughout the term and is very excited to be awarded this grant,” said Sheetul Hassan, a third-year materials science and engineering student and team leader for the project. “The grant money will be used primarily for improvement of our innovation through community outreach programs and in much-needed software. This is a great honor and we look forward to the future success of this project.”

Other team members include industrial and systems engineering students Charlotte Huang, Swetha Krishnakumar and Xiaotong Yang; and computer science student Himani Manglani. Rich DeMillo, distinguished professor in the College of Computing, served as faculty advisor. The honor includes $1,000 for project implementation, $500 in student scholarships and a $1,000 stipend to DeMillo. The team was presented with certificates of merit by Georgia Tech President G. P. “Bud” Peterson on May 5.