Any Time Education cards change lifestyle in colleges

Bangalore, July 23 (UNI) Plastic cards revolutionising the financial sector have taken a new avatar in the field of education, with the emergence of Smart Campus Cards in engineering colleges across South India which is all set to make a foray into Maharashtra and New Delhi.

These Any Time Education cards have come as a boon to lecturers and students, besides college administrators to keep track of their various works.

Introduced by IDenizen Smartware Pvt Ltd two years ago, these cards were currently used by over 35,000 students, lecturers and administrators of over 40 colleges across South India.

Company President and CEO Girish Baliga told UNI that every week, two colleges were signing up and plans were afoot to set up such a facility in colleges in Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. Medical colleges were also seeking the facility and it would soon be introduced in degree colleges too, besides taking it to other developing nations.

''Smart cards are multi-application cards used for access control, monetary transactions, computer network access, usage of machines, laboratory facilities and usage of vending machines,'' he said, adding that with a swipe of the card, students could pay fees, borrow books, check attendance and do much more.

Mr Baliga said these cards would shortly have e-cash facility, wherein students could use a fixed amount of currency within the college campus.

The revenue model neither burdened the college managements nor the engineering students who have to pay just Rs 400 for the card (Rs 100 per year). The necessary infrastructure and software would be provided by IDenizen.

Mr Baliga said the company was also in talks with a few venture capitalists to expand the operations. The requirement would be around three million US Dollars.

Though the current versions were based on Microsoft platforms, plans were on to develop versions using open source platforms such as Linux.

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