Georgian College Presented with the NACCU 2021 Innovative Technology Award

Phoenix, AZ – May 7, 2021 – NACCU is proud to announce that Georgian College is the recipient of the NACCU 2021 Innovative Technology Award, sponsored by HID Global. Tim Nyblom and David O’Driscoll announced the award recipient during the virtual NACCU 2021 Awards Ceremony event on April 20, 2021.

The NACCU Innovative Technology Award recognizes and celebrates the success of a NACCU institutional member that has implemented innovative uses of technology in support of services used by campus identification programs.

Georgian College took on a challenge that sought to replace transit stickers by seamlessly distributing a digital bus UPass to their students each semester. Normally they have a long line of students waiting to receive their sticker passes and often had students sharing their passes with others. They had to use resources from both their campus and their transit partners to complete an automatic delivery of the digital UPass once an ID was printed. Part of their challenge was overcoming connectivity issues with city buses, so they used their ingenuity to create a way for a nightly script of approved students to be downloaded to each bus as they went through their cleaning bays at the end of the night. In a year when decreasing lines was crucial to everyone’s safety, they were able to eliminate one of the of the largest wait lines they get each semester. Surveying their student body, their approval rating showed students were satisfied with the change. Achieving their goal, they were able to offer students a service that maintains the ideal of a single card for all their campus needs.

“On behalf of the UPass project team, I’d like to thank you for this honor,” said Jennifer McDonald, “ I know that this year especially, every school was undergoing a state of digital innovation like never before, so for our project to have been singled out among such a strong group of passionate and dedicated people really means a lot.”

NACCU and award sponsor HID Global congratulate Georgian College as the recipient of the NACCU 2021 Innovative Technology Award.