Capstone Projects
Sponsorship Opportunities
Capstone projects offer companies direct access to highly trained, intensely motivated students applying their advanced skills and expertise to a wide range of challenges and opportunities.
Working with faculty supervision, teams focus on sponsor-defined projects that result in the exploration of solutions and potentially a proof-of-concept or prototype. Capstones are the culmination of the graduate or undergraduate program experience.
Sponsorship
Sponsors Can Expect
- A team of two to eight students focused on a sponsor-defined project over one or two semesters.
- Faculty supervision, and mid-term and final presentations.
- Capstones often deliver a publication-quality report and a conference-style presentation. Many of the teams publish their results in top-tier conferences and workshops.
Benefits
- Exposure to innovative, insightful ideas.
- Access to highly trained students for problem-solving and recruitment purposes.
- Developing relationships with world-renowned faculty.
- Building brand awareness within the campus community.
- Input on the problem statement from Carnegie Mellon professor(s).
- Licensing options to student work product(s) developed during the course.
Requirements
- A problem to solve and/or data to analyze.
- A company mentor who is available for a specified number of contacts and meetings with the student team.
- A signed Educational Project Agreement.
- Payment of the capstone fee.
Sample Project Themes
- Develop a new technology product offering (from ideation to commercialization).
- Optimize a delivery distribution network.
- Complete customer discovery.
- Develop autonomous robots.
- Perform market analysis.
- Implement AI systems responsive to market needs.
- Conduct technical research and feasibility evaluation.
- Evaluate privacy-enhancing technologies for organizations.
Learn About Capstone Opportunities
Learn more about capstone sponsorship in our Capstone Roundtable video below. The event, held in fall 2023, covers topics including the qualities of capstone projects that yield successful outcomes, the potential hurdles that can occur and how to navigate them, and a menu of available options. You'll also hear from one of our industry sponsors and leaders of several SCS capstone programs.