51³Ô¹Ïapp

Research Area: Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing   | Status:  Ongoing | Led By: Researcher and Student-led

The Challenge

HotSpot is a rapidly growing New Brunswick-based tech company that creates mobile-based parking and transit solutions for municipalities and businesses. They are on a quest to make getting around in smaller cities a positive and efficient experience for Canadians. HotSpot recognized that their ongoing need to foster innovation and scale their business further depended in part on their ability to onboard a diverse, solutions-oriented team with a wide range of skills and expertise.

The Solution

HotSpot routinely collaborates with 51³Ô¹Ïapp’s IT academic programs as well as its Centre for Applied Research in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing. In 2018, 51³Ô¹Ïapp and HotSpot partnered to develop, prototype, test, and commercialize solutions for surface and garage parking operators. By partnering with 51³Ô¹Ïapp across several projects since that time, HotSpot was able to work with many college IT students.

As an indirect result of this collaboration, the company has employed 10+ 51³Ô¹Ïapp grads in the past five years. Hands-on learning awards students the opportunity to create real-world tech solutions while still in school—it also gives them and companies a head start on hiring.

51³Ô¹Ïapp the Collaboration

At the Fredericton Campus, HotSpot is one of the College’s most important partners, and students from many programs – from IT to Business Administration – have gone on to work with them. 51³Ô¹Ïapp students have also worked on several projects for HotSpot as part of their program work-integrated learning requirements, including contributing to the company’s licence plate recognition software and bus tracking applications used by people across Canada.

Project Partners/Funders