Solve Your Real-World Challenges
When businesses sponsor a Capstone Design project, senior students provide access to fresh innovative thinking that can solve challenging problems for businesses. Capstone student teams in each discipline work with faculty leaders to develop a project plan that clearly defines end-user and sponsor needs, design objectives, anticipates constraints, and ensures the project details, requirements, and metrics will lead to success. The teams continue through concept generation, selection, and design to produce a testable, working prototype that can be refined to meet the project objectives.
Industry Sponsor Benefits and Deliverables
Student-prepared work and findings can vary from program to program. Depending on the project, industry sponsors could expect to receive:
- An opportunity to impact engineering and computer science curricula and join the ECCD Industry Advisory Board
- A detailed report capturing the design, analysis, performance, and alternative approaches considered during the development and design of the project
- Source code, where applicable, such as the actual drawings, prototype programming, performance analysis and simulation software. (Learn more about Intellectual Property)
- The physical prototype (solution, discovery, findings or model) developed by the project team, where applicable, upon completion of the use of the prototype by team members (Some projects may be submitted to local, statewide, national or international competitions.)
- Increased visibility in the field, recruitment tools and emerging engineering and computing professionals from which to recruit
- Mobile, desktop or web applications or embedded systems built by our computer science and engineering students using the latest techniques and platforms
- A dedicated space in the McNair Center in which to showcase your project, reserved exclusively for CEC projects that stand out from the rest through the use of emerging technologies and demonstration of a clear benefit to the end user.
- An invitation to the annual Engineering and Computing Capstone Expo, where all ECCD teams present and display their products, prototypes, findings, and posters
Not only have these projects been beneficial to our organization for product & process improvements, but it has also been valuable for our employees […]. For any company that is considering this opportunity, I wholeheartedly recommend it!
-Les Barsony, Professional Engineer, President, BarDak Group
Sponsor Responsibilities
- Contribute to the ECCD Program. The contribution will depend on the company size and type of project
- Appoint a practicing engineer or computer scientist to serve as a point of contact and sponsor advocate for the team. This person will work on the project, participate in design reviews, meet regularly with student teams, provide support and guidance, and evaluate the final product
- Agree to the student/sponsor-friendly terms of USC’s Intellectual Property policy
Intellectual Property
As part of a Capstone Design Project, students may contribute to the development of intellectual property, or require a confidentiality agreement or conflict disclosure. We help companies navigate these issues.
Under its general Intellectual Property (IP) policy, the University of South Carolina owns IP that is created by its faculty, staff or students in the scope of their work using University resources or using funding that flows through the University. However, the university recognizes that Capstone Design Projects are unique.
As undergraduate students, Capstone Design Project students are not employees of the University, are not performing research under a research program, and are not receiving funding from the University. Therefore, USC does not claim an ownership interest in IP that is created during the Capstone Design Projects.
By default, students will own IP that they create. Prior to the start of the project, sponsors may make a written request to own IP created during a Capstone Design Project that they fund. Students who prefer to retain ownership of the IP that they create may elect to work on projects where there is no outside sponsor or where the sponsor has not requested ownership.
A company may request students to enter into a confidentiality agreement in order for the company to participate and provide a project to the students. In certain circumstances this may be a reasonable request by the company. However, please be aware that the Capstone Design Expo is open to the public and that project information must be shared with other students and professors in the course to meet the course requirement.
Students should consider whether assigning IP rights or signing a confidentiality agreement for a capstone project would conflict with any other activity in which they are engaged. For example, if students or faculty are involved in a similar project as part of teaching or research activities, they might want to consider whether the capstone project would create a real or perceived conflict with the other activity. Questions or concerns about a potential conflict should be discussed with the coordinating professor.
Become an Industry Sponsor
For more information about the Capstone Design Program or to become an industry sponsor, please contact Dr. Abdel Bayoumi, Associate Dean, at bayoumi@sc.edu or call 803-777-1845, or contact Andre Calderon, Industrial Coordinator, at ac22@cec.sc.edu or call 803-576-8227.