LaptopsAnytime: Transforming the Very Meaning of Collaborative ‘Computing’

How about a walk into the university library, computing lab, student center or other academic building, and operate an interactive kiosk to get a laptop dispensed! While the students can swipe-in (or scan-in) their university id cards and personal identification number to avail themselves a device, school administrators only have to purchase the kiosk equipment once and from then on, each checkout is free for students as part of the school computing infrastructure. Sounds smooth, doesn’t it! With checkouts numbering over one million annually and kiosks installed in 27 states nationally and 4 continents, Dallas, TX, headquartered LaptopsAnytime has made this a worldwide movement.

When Matt Bruscher, President and CEO of LaptopsAnyime was actualizing his passion towards Educational Technology, the higher education sector was still lagging a technological disruption. LaptopsAnytime’s revolution isn’t just about automating the laptop checkout process, but it is altogether a ‘move beyond desktops.’ While traditional desktop labs take up valuable real estate and require oversight, adding to an institution’s budget, LaptopsAnytime’s device dispensing kiosks offer a “one-to-many” access to mobile devices without any need for human intervention. “Our kiosks adapt to the ever-changing mobile device market and automates the checkout and return process while eliminating the risks of human errors,” points Bruscher.

While Traditional laptop checkout programs are manual and relies heavily on people consistently performing a multi-step process to check in and out a device, LaptopsAnytime’s kiosks eliminate this process through its automated checkout program. The firm’s kiosks operate 24/7/365, and through the intuitive user interface, students can easily select a device by swiping their ID, entering a password and the kiosk dispenses their device of choice in 10 seconds. Upon returning the device, the student simply needs to find an open slot and place the device back in and the kiosk completes the checkin process. The intelligent kiosk software will only dispense a device in working order with the battery at an acceptable level and upon return of a damaged device it can send an email to administrators alerting them of the issue and block the device from being checked out until it has been serviced.