Munir Mandviwalla

A little friendly competition and a lot of hard work are the hallmarks of the Fox School of Business Management Information Systems Capstone Project Showcase, an event where teams of MIS seniors present their final projects.Last semester, though, fun won out over hard, when a panel of judges awarded first prize to the team that built findr, a mobile app that sends people out, scavenger hunt style, into the city of Philadelphia tracking down fun things to do, see and eat.

Giovanna Corridoni, a recent MIS and International Business graduate who was part of the winning team, says that creating a capstone project is, “intense, more intense than a paper or a case study.”
One of the hardest parts was figuring out what to do in the first place, she says.  The team wanted “something worth doing” that could have a solid business plan.  If they didn’t create something people wanted to do, or buy, “what’s the point?”
Jordan Szenicer also said that agreeing on a viable idea was tough.  The five person team (which included himself, Corridoni, Jalen Blot, Matt Philips and Chaitra Nataraj) had two brainstorming sessions with no big epiphany until he shared his own wish that sites like Yelp served as better guides for urbane exploration.  “I wished there was something that just scouted out a day for me.”

So that’s what they built. 
The application is designed to take the user from point to point in a city, with incentives for visiting each spot. Take a picture at the Rocky statue and get the address of a great restaurant; go to the restaurant and get a free appetizer. Then continue onto a concert that the app tells you is happening—rather than hearing that a great band is town too late to get to the show.
The revenue stream would come from partnering with restaurants, Corridoni says, and the target market was 18 to 35 year olds— people who want to explore, but are overwhelmed with choices so “always go back to the same restaurant.
The road to completing the explore and enjoy app wasn’t smooth.  Both Szenicer and Corridoni say that there was a last minute scramble to pull everything together.
But they pulled it off, and won.  The actual prize was 100 Diamond Dollars for each member of the team, but Corridoni says the reward was really that she got to use her skills to create something awesome.
Alumnus Ben Hasan, Senior Vice President, IT Strategic Services, at Walmart, served as the team’s mentor and thinks they won because both the product and the presentation was the best.
Szenicer says, “After our presentation ended, I knew at that moment that we won. I was so proud of all of us. I just felt so great in what we had achieved.”
Of course, just completing and presenting a capstone project is quite an achievement. 
Other projects presented at the December event included:
Rapid RampupA gamification-based app that aims to reduce the time it takes for new-hires to become 100% proficient in their job. Mentor: Michael Bradshaw
Ian JohnsonJude HabibDaniel HoffensBrandon Warech
SafEvacThe smartphone application and dashboard provide schools and local police with a tool to better respond, secure, and evacuate during a school shooting. Mentor: Bruce Fadem
Corey KalkanogluJosh MethMichael NguyenKarrie Burgess
HealthFit ProHealthFit Pro is a lifestyle application that enables diabetic and non-diabetic users to take control of their health by monitoring their diet, exercise and glucose readings. Mentor: Tim O’Rourke
Mathew CottonKira GreenleeMahfuz HassanVeer PatelJerrin Raju
ZAPZAP is a gamified energy management app. that displays real-time energy use relative to other citizens with similar homes in their zip code, city, or state. Mentor: Jeff Hamilton
Steven CawleyMichael FracasJonathan GavalaAlexandra GuilfordJohn Hendricks
TIM- Time is MoneyTIM is a mobile app that allows people to outsource waiting in line, so they can best take advantage of all of their free time. Mentor: Joseph Spagnoletti
Jesse DahmsZachary SilversteinThane TaggRachael VoluckChristopher Pak

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When is it a good idea for state governments to spend more tax dollars? When that money goes to information technologies, it turns out.
Min-Seok Pang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Information Systems, Fox School of Business, is a self-proclaimed “news and political junkie.”  That interest lead to a question: what is the value of IT in the public sector? While there has been extensive research on the fiscal value of information technologies in the business sector for the last couple of decades, little has been done about evaluating the way in which government spending on IT affects or improves services or efficiencies.
In the business world, the research has demonstrated that more investment in IT leads to improvement in firm performance in terms of productivity, profitability, or market value. But, in the public sector there was only anecdotal evidence illustrating that the correct use and implementation of information systems in public organizations could save taxpayers’ money, for instance, by digitizing business processes, which can save time, or improving transparency of an administration.
Pang and co-authors Dr. M.S. Krishnan, University of Michigan, and Dr. Ali Tafti, University of Illinois, Chicago, first compared all 50 states to see which was most efficient, measuring efficiency by looking at how much money various states spend to produce the same level of government services. They then looked at the level of IT spending to calculate the cost savings.  Finally, they compared spending data, from 2001-2004, from 44 U.S. state governments.

If one state spends more money to produce the same amount of government services than other states, that state is less efficient than others. I found that the more tax revenues a state government spends in information technologies, the more efficient it is.

How efficient? An additional $1 investment in IT made by a state’s chief information officer (CIO) leads to a savings of $1.13 in the state’s administrative costs, in terms of operational expenses and capital deprecation. Somewhat surprisingly, the savings was highest in rural areas. “Cost savings from $1 IT investments are larger when a state is more rural. But it does make sense – if a state is more rural, it has to maintain more state government offices and operations in remote locations (a DMV office for example). Providing government services via the Internet can save costs for both rural residents and state governments.” Pang said.
Pang’s research is one of the first rigorous scientific studies with a large-scale dataset that measure returns on IT investments in governments. With declining tax revenues and mounting budget deficits, some public-sector organizations have scaled back their investments in IT in recent years.  Pang’s study shows that it is not a wise move. He believes that government IT officials can use the study to convince taxpayers and their representatives that IT investments generate sufficient returns to the public to justify needed, strategic, spending on IT.  
Pang, M.-S., Tafti, A., and Krishnan, M.S. (2014) “Information Technology and Administrative Efficiency in U.S. State Governments – A Stochastic Frontier Approach,” MIS Quarterly (38:4) pp. 1079-1101.
Learn more about Min-Seok at: http://community.mis.temple.edu/minspang/

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An MIS degree from the Fox School of Business reflects far more than hours spent in the classroom. Beyond the program’s  top-ranked courses are extensive and required opportunities for students to gain pro […]