Where’s George is a website that allows regular people to track their $1 bills as they are being used throughout the country. I find it quite exciting how these students from Northwestern used very basic technology and quite a simple idea to realize a huge potential – understanding of travel patterns through the US. As they say in the video “money don’t have wings” so if the money travels, it means somebody carried that money them. This is a great representation of what engineering should really be about – simple ideas that answer world’s most complicated questions. Why complicated? Because measuring what they have is actually really hard, they made it really easy. (Canadians have a sister website – Where’s WIlly)

This video describes the system and what kind of information it can deliver.