This organization will surely change over the passage of time, however, it is important to set forth a list of founding values and missions that it was created with in mind. While these are just the values of the handful of students that created the organization, it may be helpful to make reference to these as guiding principles when making decisions regarding the future of the organization. It is important to remember that these should be open to flexibility as the organization grows and changes, but that this is where we got our start.
Mission
“Whereas students often lack tools that assist in their academic and career success; whereas students benefit from applying their knowledge outside of the classroom; and whereas there should be a place to learn and have fun while building tools for the community, we establish the Nebula Labs organization to build and maintain tools that help students, to foster an interdisciplinary and welcoming community, and to teach the community what we learn”
- From the Preamble of the Nebula Labs Constitution
The mission of Nebula Labs has had and should always have the development of tools to assist the student body of UT Dallas (or other interested student bodies) at its heart. The organization’s founding members, dissatisfied with the software tools offered by the University and knowing that with the University’s reputation for technically talented individuals, set out to make a suite of tools for use by the student body to improve student life in all aspects.
In this mission, the organization should resolve itself to build tools that assist students in their academic, social, and personal lives while they are in college to make the most of the experiences and opportunities available to them while they are here at UTD.
In that vein, we believe that working as a part of Nebula Labs and teaching what we have learned is one such opportunity that we can offer to improve student life directly. This means that the organization, while its primary focus is development, should also be focused on the personal development of its membership and should consider how its work can be used to better the personal and professional lives of its members. In the words of our first President
“We build products and peope”
-Ryan Radloff