Title: Utilizing Emergent Web-Based Software Tools as an Effective Method for Increasing Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing in Collocated Student Design Teams

Over the last few decades, the methods and tools through which humans collaborate, share knowledge and generally communicate have been advancing at a rapid pace. Thanks mostly to advances in broadband internet, cheap data storage and fast microprocessors, humans now have the ability to work together in ways that even a couple decades ago were not even imaginable. From holding video conferences with clients in Europe and Germany to organizing a team of engineers operating in different cities, the way humans interact has entered an era where the lines between being in the same room and sitting thousands of miles away have been blurred. The implications of such technology have been and continue to become increasingly influential on how our society produces knowledge and creates innovation. The field of engineering design has not been left out of such advances and continues to be directly affected by such shifts in economic and societal structures. As such, this defense will look at the overarching effects that internet-based collaboration and knowledge sharing is having on the economy, society and most importantly tech industries; the goal being to draw insight and conclusions from fundamental shifts in these areas and ho