MSCAPP students write about their experience in the student organization, CAPP4Good.

Members: Jose Cardona Arias, Daniella Ayala, Daniela Chavez, Callie Leone, and Libby Seline 

MSCAPP students gather in front of a presentation screen that says Hackathon
May 2025 Hackathon Group: Members of the CAPP class of 2025 and 2026 pose for a group shot during a Hackthon event where they built projects dedicated to their policy interests.

What is the mission of CAPP4Good?

Our mission is broken down into three key aspects: 

  • Inspire: start a culture of developing tech products
  • Build: create useful tech products based on policy interests
  • Learn: develop knowledge to be able to more easily create tech products

In the hustle and bustle of the quarter system, it can be easy to forget why each of us came to grad school. We came to CAPP with projects we wanted to tackle, skills we wanted to develop, and policy interests that we wanted to explore. CAPP4Good is a student organization that is meant to remind students of their goals. 

We have Lightning Talks where students can present on their policy interests, personal projects, and expertise they built before CAPP. We also have Hackathons where students can form groups to jump start a project they want to execute. Additionally, we have weekly Coding Sessions where students can hang out, work on homework or personal endeavors, and learn more about their cohort. We really value the community aspect of CAPP4Good. CAPP is full of some of the most interesting people we’ve ever met, and these activities help us learn more about each other. 

What are some key projects that you’ve done, or are currently planning, and how do these projects help the community? Any other highlights? 

We want to foster projects that can help different communities—whether that community is a student’s country or the local UChicago community. As a board, we see our roles as empowering students to create projects that do that. CAPP4Good is also a community where creativity can thrive, and students can build any project they are passionate about. 

We are currently planning a Hackathon to occur at the end of the spring quarter, and we are really excited to see the projects that will come out of that event. Previous projects include an endeavor called OpenPeru, which is designed to empower Peruvian citizens with a political platform where they can track politicians’ activities, view bills, and visualize party dynamics. One of our classmates from Peru came up with the idea and recruited some peers to help him during the Hackathon. 

We also really care about connecting with our CAPP community. We hosted an event called “Policy Speed Dating.” During this event, students paired up for three minutes at a time to talk about their policy interests, backgrounds, hobbies, etc. No coding, no project designing—just a chance to connect with people you may not otherwise meet.

MSCAPP students gathered on the steps of the Keller Center after policy speed dating
Policy Speed Dating Group: Members of the CAPP class of 2026 and 2027 gather for a group shot after participating in Policy Speed Dating

How do you apply the skills you earned in the MSCAPP program to the projects you are doing with CAPP 4 Good?

We’re all about CAPP-italizing (pun intended) on our skills to drive social change. A lot of what we do has been about taking the skills we learn from class and tracing them back to the reason we came to grad school. The foundational coding experiences we have in our core coding courses allow us to build projects in Hackathons. 

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