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A young boy types on a laptop. A parent watches over his shoulder.

 

The demand for online learning has escalated during the pandemic, with increasing numbers of students turning to search engines like Google for additional help with homework and other assignments. But for some young and less experienced online users, finding the information they need at a level they can understand can be challenging.

A team of computer science students from Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering and Georgia Institute of Technology has created a custom search engine, Searchin’, to provide those students with age- or education-appropriate information. In fall 2020, Searchin’ won four awards at HopHacks, a bi-annual hackathon hosted by the Department of Computer Science at Johns Hopkins University. The project also received funding from the Student Initiatives Fund, and has received awards from FastForward U, DigitalOcean, and Domain.com.

Searchin’ is the first-ever technology focused on giving users this kind tailored result, says Samuel Nathanson, the team leader and a master’s student in the Whiting School of Engineering. He conceived the idea after a personal experience trying to get information online.

Read the complete story at The Hub.