Winning Team of UTDsolv Capstone Expo Honored by Town of Prosper

Editors’ Note: This feature appears as it was published in the spring 2024 edition of UT Dallas Magazine. Titles or faculty members listed may have changed since that time.

Winning Team of UTDsolv Capstone Expo Honored by Town of Prosper

By Eric Butterman

JSOM students and faculty toured the Prosper fire station

At a recent town hall meeting in Prosper, Texas, the town officially recognized and thanked a team of Naveen Jindal School of Management students for developing an innovative tool designed to enhance the police department’s data analysis capabilities for improving response strategies.

The team competed in and placed first at the Fall 2023 UTDsolv Capstone Expo. The students stood out among 120 competing groups in developing their tool for Prosper. Team members included Shreya Joy and Brian Brutocao, seniors in information and technology systems (ITS), along with Srivani Ganapavarapu and Shriya Jejurkar, recent ITS graduates.

At the town hall, Leigh Johnson, director of information technology for Prosper, explained the team’s challenge.

JSOM students and faculty with Leigh Johnson, left, and Mayor David Bristol (right), who read a proclamation at the Prosper town hall meeting recognizing the students for their efforts.

“This was a semester-long program where in this case two student teams took on two projects for the town that we proposed, one for the fire department, one for the police department,” he said. “They did some data analysis, dashboarding, leaderboarding for us that’s going to really help us out in terms of digging into the data…”

Rob Stogsdill, a lecturer at the Jindal School and a mentor in the UTDsolv Senior Capstone Program who has solicited projects from the Town of Prosper, was excited about the students’ accomplishment, not only from the Jindal School’s perspective but also as a Prosper resident.

“Every moment counts when it comes to a response,” said Stogsdill, a technology director at State Farm. “This work that they’ve done could save lives. That this is going to help with emergency response times is incredible — this has a chance to reduce response times to accidents by seconds or even minutes. The team exceeded expectations by building a fully functioning application.”

From left: Leigh Johnson, Shriya Jejurkar and
Srivani Ganapavarapu — From left: Leigh Johnson, Shriya Jejurkar and Srivani Ganapavarapu

During the town hall meeting, Mayor David Bristol presented a proclamation that included the following passage:

“…The collaborative projects undertaken by the bright minds of UTD senior students have contributed significantly to the betterment of our community, bringing fresh perspectives and cuttingedge solutions to complex local issues…”