At CROSS, we create open source leaders by blending open source software strategies with graduate-level research in a concentrated environment of mentorship and interaction with world class industry, academia, and open source experts. CROSS transfers cutting-edge technology from student research to industry via successful open source projects. CROSS was founded based on the success of former UCSC student Sage Weil with the Ceph open source storage system. Industry partners are critical to our success. Our proximity to Silicon Valley allows us to match UCSC's world class researchers with experts from leading tech companies, start-ups, and top open source experts. We draw from this expertise to choose projects to maximize impact and success. Contact us about becoming an industry member. As an example, CROSS industry members are working with our students and faculty on the design of fabric-connected, "eusocial" storage devices that can communicate with each other to provide collective functionality while still assuming frugal resources within devices. Open source prototypes emerging from this effort will form the blueprints for future standards efforts. CROSS is a Research Center at the Baskin School of Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz.