22Miles Provides Digital Signage Technology to Connect Georgia Tech University Campus

Campus-wide project at Georgia Tech will enable more effective connectivity among students, staff and officials while improving communication.

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22Miles Provides Digital Signage Technology to Connect Georgia Tech University Campus

Georgia Tech University officials have long recognized that digitial signage plays a critical role in keeping its roughly 33,000 students, faculty members and staff connected, but the Atlanta school’s solutions needed an upgrade to keep up with today’s demands.

In December 2018, the university had reached a communications crossroads with its digital signage. Officials wanted consistent, campus-wide branding, paired with a method to allow individual departments within the university to contribute their content in an intuitive way.

A new digital signage department was created, tasked with managing and implementing a campus-wide system and 22Miles emerged as the right solution provider to handle the project with its team of 30+ developers.

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Most of the Georgia Tech signs are general-purpose lobby signs, spread out in buildings all over campus, with more than 70 of those signs dedicated to displaying room schedules and building events.

The university’s on-campus digital signage department communicated that the goal of the project was to generating value, outcomes, and experiences, and to secure, inform, and inspire their campus audience.

22Miles equipped the university with a platform built for the future by pairing their responsive software with BrightSign display solutions supplied by Georgia Tech.

22Miles partnered with hardware and display provider BrightSign for the installation of more than 325 digital signs across the sprawling Georgia Tech campus.

Inside the Installation

Having 22Miles’s Publisher Pro solution installed across the 325 signs enables Georgia Tech’s digital signage team to be self-sufficient in managing their full portfolio of digital signage displays across the sprawling campus.

Team members can leverage the selection of widgets and editing properties within Publisher Pro, with the added ease of the quick web editor and web portal. The cross-platform solution gives Georgia Tech instant access to a suite of digital applications.

The 22Miles/BrightSign solution for Georgia Tech was designed “to empower  users with a simple content management system to manage hundreds of signs across its dynamic campus,” according to the 22Miles announcement.

Individual displays are accessible across all of the campus departments. Team members can quickly add and edit curated information, including RSS feeds for on-campus events, emergency feeds for alerts and safety information, data lists for class schedules, and more.

Each campus department utilizes its respective section, with the team reporting virtually no learning curve, even for more specific acts like scheduling media for news and updating dining services menus.

The integrated channel feature allows Georgia Tech staffers to use any of the branded main templates, while also having the ability to push different content to specific players. Departments can push centralized, customized content out to any sign.

Georgia Tech

Future Georgia Tech Digital Signage Plans

The university’s digital signage team has now trained more than 60 departments to use 22Miles Publisher Pro software. The 22Miles/BrightSign solution is used all over campus. Once they learned what they could do, many of them stated it became a kind of “freedom” for them.

As the campus needs change due to the COVID-19 pandemic and future needs, interactive 3D wayfinding can further enhance the student and visitor experience, with 22Miles’ latest Protection-as-a-Solution (PaaS) solution, which includes features such as “Touchless Touch” to support touch-free navigation and display control.

The new solution enables users to leverage voice commands to navigate to their destinations on campus, find information, and more. The university will also leverage the solution’s API integration capabilities so the university can integrate any third-party feed automation.

“We set out to give them the right solution for instant communication with approved branding and self-generated messaging through a campus-wide channel,” said 22Miles executive VP Tomer Mann. “

This platform can empower university departments to integrate other apps and future technologies into Publisher Pro’s centralized user-centric platform. We will continue to work with them to support whatever technology needs they have moving forward,” said Mann.

There are more than 325 digital devices active on Georgia Tech’s campus to date, with another 250-plus to get up and running during the initial phase of implementation. University officials plan to complete the full plan for the university’s digital signage overhaul.

Georgia Tech

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