International Capstone Project Exchange

Where Students and Industry

Collaborate!

The International Capstone Project Exchange is a network of universities and companies that collaborate to give students real-world international experience without requiring travel.

How it works
Join the Exchange

Current Projects Up for Bid

Current Sponsors

How IT Works

Universities can request to join the International Capstone Project Exchange. Once the university is registered, the faculty facilitator can request to be paired with a university in another country that is working with students in the same or a complementary discipline. That university will find a company to sponsor a project for your students, and you will find a company to sponsor a project for their students. The exchanges, however, are not required to run at the same time. Project timelines are based on each university’s academic calendar. Your responsibility to your university partner is to help them connect with a company in your country. Once that occurs, your role in that exchange is complete. Likewise, once you are connected with a company in another country, your university partner will step away. You and the company will work together to shape the experience.

Why Join?

An international capstone exchange helps students round out their education by combining teamwork with application of skills in
an international business setting. It also gives them the opportunity to make make industry contacts and to develop skills that make them more marketable:

  • Working as a team to achieve a goal
  • Communicating in a professional, team-oriented, international setting
  • Understanding the global context of situations
  • Being aware of cultural differences in the workplace
  • Identifying cross-functional roles and relationships
  • Finding innovative solutions to challenges, such as language barriers, time zone issues and technology preferences

Various Exchange Models

  • Default/Standard: 1-1 pairing where each university finds an industry sponsor for a student team in the paired country
  • Subcontract: one university subcontracts a part of a larger industry sponsored project to students in the paired country
  • Joint Development: teams of students from the two universities work together on the same project (can be harder to manage)
  • Exchange of Research Oriented Projects: in some disciplines (e.g. chemistry) industry sponsored projects are not common, so faculty sponsored research oriented projects may be used
View General Guidelines

Benefits for companies

  • Get a small project completed by university students at little or no cost
  • See upcoming graduates in action for recruiting purposes
  • Establish relationships with university contacts
  • Give students real-world experience in preparation for the workforce
  • Gain experience managing international projects

Subject Areas

The exchange is open to any discipline, and any other areas where there may be interest are welcome. Current projects are:

  • Agricultural Engineering
  • Computer Engineering/Electrical and Computer Engineer
  • Computer Science
  • Journalism
  • Marketing
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Software Engineering
Join the Exchange

Showcase of exchanges

North Dakota State University / Ericsson (Linkoping, Sweden) via Linkoping University
Ericsson is a global leader in delivering Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions. In fact, forty percent of the world's mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. This semester's project for Ericsson was to develop a mobile application that can send an android ping to a database. Once that ping is in the server, the web interface that we created will communicate with the web server we setup to display real-time data circles that entail cellular network information.
Watch Video
North Dakota State University / Inwerken, (Hannover, Germany) via Hochshule-Hannover
The Internet of Things is a technology that is being pioneered by many businesses and organizations. To understand the feasibility of this new field, Inwerken had tasked us to build a prototype workflow demonstrating the connection of external sensor data being parsed and sent to the cloud. Our solution consisted of a provided gateway sensor device connecting to the HANA Cloud database through several pre-existing frameworks. Using the Node-RED JavaScript framework, which is a programming tool for connecting the Internet of Things together, we parsed different types of test data (like humidity and brightness), packaged it into a json string, and sent it to the HANA Cloud.
Texas A&M University, United States, working with UNSW, Australia
Team of two ECE students from Texas A&M working with a sponsor at UNSW, Australia, on a system that estimates crowds in a room as well as incoming and outgoing traffic in order to do crowd control as well as market reach calculations. Phone app summarizes and enables user to visualize all the information.
UNSW, Australia working with Texas A&M University, United States
Team of two ECE students from UNSW working with a sponsor at Texas A&M University, USA, developing a platform that will track its user’s movements and follow them around busy areas like airports, train stations, bus stations etc. plus alert the user if the connection is lost. The platform can handle weights of up to 10Kg, which is the equivalent of airplane carry-on luggage.
Western Sydney University, Australia / Sparrow Marine (Savannah, Georgia, United States)
A team of information communication technology students developed a web-based system to maintain regulatory details of vessels. The tool simplifies the query process, allowing the marine experts to understand regulations that are applicable to different states.
North Dakota State University / Inwerken, (Hannover, Germany) via Hochshule-Hannover
NDSU students worked with Inwerken, an SAP business software consulting company to make an Internet of Things (IoT) solution to easily obtain and display sensor data in the cloud. Their solution for this uses a TI-SensorTag CC2650 sensor to capture data and send it to a BananaPro microcomputer via Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The data is preprocessed on the BananaPro device locally and then pushed to the SAP HANA Cloud via the internet with simple URL calls. Using SAP’s UI5 platform, they implemented a display dashboard to visualize the data, giving the client greater control and awareness over their product and processes.
North Dakota State University / Swedish Meteorological & Hydrological Institute (Linkoping, Sweden) via Linkoping University
The project developed a web application used to monitor climate data coming from an HPC. It uses a php back end with an Angular JS front end. The information displayed includes time stamps of previous 5 updates, time since previous updates (displayed as a dynamic counter), most recent model status (including previous 4 status), and a time series charts to display scalar data. Another feature includes the ability to search and display multiple files. Our project is compatible with a variety of devices including tablet and mobile.
North Dakota State University / Data61 ( Australia) via Deakin University
This project focused on manipulating various data sets without having to send the data over the internet to be processed. We achieved this by writing a backend service that takes the data mappings from the data sets the user wanted to manipulate along with the transformations they wanted to perform on the data sets. After the service received all this data it generated a JavaScript file that was passed back to the front end where the front end used it to perform the transformation on the data sets.
Linkoping University and the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs
UCCS has two teams working on two different projects supporting Linkoping’s Student Formula car. One team is developing a solution that should change the angle of attack of the rear wing during a race. The second team is developing a new lightweight solution for the pedal box.
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hannover, Germany / National Information Solutions Cooperative (United States) via North Dakota State University
A team of computer science students developed an iOS app for a utility bill pay application that enabled customers to visualize utility costs and bill payment for their facilities on iPhone and iPad.
University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign (United States) & Universidad del Norte (Colombia) / Grain Systems, Inc., (United States)
A team of students improved the design of existing grain handling hardware. They replaced existing mechanisms with higher quality parts that cost less than installing a new system.
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Become a Sponsor

The International Capstone Project Exchange Sponsorship Program is the one way that industry partners can support the ICPE. A sponsor is recognized on the ICPE website through various methods, including placing your logo and certain links on our website.

In order to keep the ICPE a sustainable and vibrant organization, funds are needed for a variety of things such as website maintenance, publishing brochures, marketing, follow-up after pairing requests are made and making sure project exchanges are running smoothly. As the ICPE matures, we envision conferences to support and expand international capstone experiences.

An individual or business located anywhere in the world that would be legal to operate anywhere in the United States is eligible to become a sponsor.

Why should I provide funding to support the ICPE?

The International Capstone Project Exchange is a network of universities and companies that collaborate to give students real-world international experience without requiring travel. Using the telecommuting concept, teams of capstone students complete projects for industry partners in other countries. This exchange helps universities and companies from around the world connect. Students are provided a unique learning experience much like they will encounter if working for a multi-national company.

By sponsoring the ICPE you show your support for our mission and help sustain a vibrant system. Sponsorship also gives you the opportunity to “give back” to students all across the globe by helping to provide a means to learn more about international collaboration.

  • Donation: US $1,000
  • Your logo (max size: 400×179) on our ICPE website
  • Logo in rotation, random placement
  • Logo in a three column row
  • Use of ICPE Partner logo for your site
  • Option to include a link to your employee-recruiting site

The additional benefit of becoming a Strategic Partner is that you will be able to include a proposed project on the ICPE website which will be available to ICPE university members to view for consideration.

How will the ICPE Project listings be managed?

As a Strategic Partner you will be able to include a proposed project (generally in the form of a statement of a problem) on the ICPE website. This proposed project which will be available to ICPE university members to view for consideration. If a university team is interested in pursuing the project, it would submit a brief proposal, including any fees and necessary budget required to carry out the project, directly to you for consideration. You are then free to select one, none or several of the universities’ proposed projects for performance.

The ICPE is a part of NDSU

The International Capstone Project Exchange operates on the campus of North Dakota State University, which is a non-profit educational institution. A portion of your sponsorship fees may be tax-deductible.

How do sponsorship renewals happen?

Sponsors may join the ICPE at any time. Your sponsorship will run for one year from the first of the next month following the receipt of payment. During the term of your annual sponsorship your logo will display on the ICPE website.

Approximately two months before the end of your sponsorship, the ICPE will contact you requesting renewal. If renewal has not occurred by the renewal date, the ICPE will remove the sponsor’s logo and any proposed projects, as applicable, from the website.

Can I just make a one-time donation?

The ICPE appreciates donations of any size. The International Capstone Project Exchange operates on the campus of North Dakota State University. Any gifts made to the ICPE should be managed for tax-purposes as a gift to the university and donations may be tax-deductible. These gifts are managed by the university in restricted accounts and limited to necessary expenses for only the ICPE. If you are an individual and your employer has a gift-matching program, please consider using that as well.

All non-monetary gifts will be considered on a case-by case basis.

Export Controls

NDSU’s operation of the ICPE will include compliance with all US Export Control Laws. All industry partners and educational institutions shall be responsible for their own compliance with all applicable export control laws.

Contact us

If you would like more information about supporting the ICPE, or to become a sponsor, please feel free to contact us directly.
"The capstone program has been an excellent way for us to get implementation teams for explorative projects. The result has been really good, and we've been able to use the results in supporting our work."
Oskar MybergSystem Engineer, Ericsson AB, Linkoping, Sweden
"When I heard that there was a German company as an option, I knew I needed to try to get on their capstone team. It gave all of us on the team a great opportunity to see the differences in how international companies operate. The best part of the experience was being invited to Germany for a two-month internship for the company; I was honored and delighted to do this."
Zech AndersonSoftware Developer, Microsoft, Fargo, North Dakota, United States
"Working for an international company has been a unique experience; Specifically, the presentation of the results to the stakeholders in the U.S. has been valuable."
Capstone StudentUniversity of Applied Sciences and Arts, Hannover, Germany

Let's Get in Touch

Contact Us

Anupama Ginige

Australia/Asia Pacific Region

Western Sydney University

j.ginige@westernsydney.edu.au

(+61) 2-96859439

Carsten Kleiner

European Region

Hochschule Hannover

carsten.kleiner@hs-hannover.de

(+49) 511-92961835

Dean Knudson

North/South America Region

North Dakota State University

dean.knudson@ndsu.edu

(+1) 701-361-4088

Steve Zahos

North/South America Region

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

szahos@illinois.edu

(+1) 217-649-3701

North Dakota State University students working for Ericsson, Linkoping, Sweden (via Linkoping University)

Ericsson is a global leader in delivering Information and Communication Technology (ICT) solutions. In fact, forty percent of the world’s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson networks. This semester’s project for Ericsson was to develop a mobile application that can send an android ping to a database. Once that ping is in the server, the web interface that we created will communicate with the web server we setup to display real-time data circles that entail cellular network information.