Alexa, Can You Lead the Way at Lehigh?

Students on the Echo Hawks team include Thaksheel Alleck ’25, Nix Huang ’25, Ryan Javier ’26, Elias Juvan ’26 and Renzo Medina ’25.

The project has been in the works for about 18 months and included a pilot program over the summer where nearly 40 students were asked to test the system and provide feedback. Alleck, who has been involved in Echo Hawks from the beginning, said he was drawn to it because he wanted to work on something that would help as many students as possible.

“The problem is, there’s nothing that’s very efficient and accessible where you can get this information right now,” he said. “Most of the time you need a laptop, a phone or email [address]…The solution here is creating a system that can give you instant access.

The group is also working with the Office of First Year Experience and Office of International Students and Scholars since first-year and international students are new to campus and may have questions, Medina said.

The technology works by using information entered into spreadsheets and a computer programming language called Python, Alleck explained. The spreadsheets make it easy to update information and can be customized if someone is holding an event on campus.

The Echo itself is mounted onto a heavy kiosk with the words, “Ask Me” illuminated on the front. It’s expected the device will soon be moved from HST to the STEPS building.

Voice-activated assistants have already found their way into other universities.

The Georgia Institute of Technology, Northeastern University and Arizona State University were early adopters of the Alexa on campus, employing it in residence halls, using it to track the number of swipes on a meal card and provide a personalized daily debriefing for students, among other tasks.

If Echo Hawks works well, Urban envisions an Echo Dot in the entrance to every building on campus as well as other applications of similar technology to aid students’ learning and success at Lehigh.

“If Netflix can use my viewing history to recommend a movie that I might want to watch, we should be able to use technology to recommend courses that students may want to take,” Urban said. “If Google Maps can tell me how to navigate from Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington while avoiding closed roads, we should give students a map that tells them how they can navigate their way through the university, avoiding dead-ends, to get a degree in four years.

“I think this kind of work is very important for us in higher education, because universities are incredibly complicated places to navigate, and we are expecting a lot of students, especially for first generation students, international students and others who are less familiar with how universities work, if we are not providing them with all the options to get guidance and advice."