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Stephen Paul Lauver posted an update in the group MIS 4596 Sp 2015 – Mandviwalla 10 years ago
Team Members: Emily Wylde, Stephen Lauver
Our application idea involves the transformation of meal plan “swipes” in students’ university accounts to credits at local businesses, as a means of trade with other Temple University students, and as a way to make charitable donations.
Thousands of meal plans are issued to Temple University students, especially underclassmen required to purchase a meal plan while living in university affiliated housing. Meal plan “swipes” are issued on a weekly basis and do not roll over into the following week when they are not used. Due to the fact that students pay for meal plans in advance, they are unable to recoup the associated costs of unused meal plans at the end of each week. Our idea incorporates multiple channels for liquidating meal plans into various forms of value, including credits for local food retailers, items for trade with other students, and as a way to donate to charitable organizations.
Basically, our application will reside on the web, with the possibility to download the app across other platforms (mainly mobile). The student will use his/her Temple ID to check the balance of meal plan “swipes” available in his/her account. To make our application user-friendly, we will need to integrate information systems of local businesses to give the student the ability to transfer “swipes” into a dollar amount redeemable at local grocery outlets, for example.
The concept sounds interesting and viable. One challenge, will you require assistance from the university to get access to the account? If so, then there is a high risk if they say no. Further, the idea of integrating other systems is challengeing. Why not pursue some kind of token, virtual cash, etc idea? Or pursue only one or two vendors for integration (e.g., Wawa?).