A group of five M.B.A. students in the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business have made it their semester project to help children who are blind or visually impaired.

The Chicago Lighthouse for People Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired has an ambitious plan to provide GPS-enabled cell phones to every blind and visually impaired child in Illinois. The team of students is working with Lighthouse to develop a pilot project that will test the plan with as many as 1,000 children in Chicago.

The group is working to test devices and develop a list of corporations and organizations they can solicit for funding and contributions. If the pilot project is successful, it could be expanded to a larger group of Illinois children.

The goal of the project is to help the children better navigate their neighborhoods on their own, thus helping them become more independent.

“There’s an overwhelming amount of tasks, and we’re trying to organize it and set some priorities for them,” said team member Tara From, a first-year M.B.A. student in a release. “That’s the biggest difference we think we can make in such a short time.”

The students, who are working with one of eight consulting teams in the Tippie Business Solutions Center that work with real clients for a fee, have met several times with leaders at Lighthouse.

The students will present a final report to the Chicago Lighthouse’s board on April 30.