Ep. 61 - Rasheed Behrooznia: Beyond the Student ID & The Future of Campus Commerce and Experience

How can universities create a seamless, safe, and connected experience that meets the soaring expectations of today's students? In this episode of Edtech Connect, host Jeff Dillon sits down with Rasheed Behrooznia, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Transact+ CBORD, who leads a $250 million business serving over 1,500 institutions.

Drawing from his unique background in defense systems engineering and transportation tech, Rasheed explains why the modern campus is like a "smart city" and how mission-critical technology—from mobile credentials in digital wallets to AI-powered dining—is the key to navigating it. They dive into the explosive 90% adoption rate of mobile student IDs, how his team balances massive scale with rapid innovation, and why the convergence of FinTech and EdTech is creating powerful new insights.

For any leader looking to reduce friction and build a truly integrated campus ecosystem, this conversation is a masterclass in leveraging technology to put the student experience first.

Key Takeaways

1. The Campus is a "Smart City": Modern campuses are complex ecosystems where students navigate numerous daily use cases—from residential access and dining to parcel pickup and makerspaces. The goal is to integrate these into one seamless, safe, and efficient experience, much like a smart city, rather than treating them as disjointed, one-off tasks.
2. Mobile Credentials are Now Table Stakes: The digital student ID, housed in the secure element of a phone or watch, has moved from a novelty to an expectation. With a 90% adoption rate at deployed institutions, it's the foundational layer for a frictionless campus experience, and the innovation now focuses on what can be built on top of this platform.
3. Balance Innovation and Scale with a Portfolio Mindset: Managing a vast product portfolio requires strategic prioritization. The key is to assess where each solution is in its lifecycle—heavy innovation, growth, or maturity—and use continuous client feedback and data to weigh the "hundreds of good ideas" against mission-critical reliability and security needs.
4. AI is an Operational Streamliner and Future Disruptor: In the short term, AI is being applied to solve immediate operational pains, such as using machine learning to predict food order ready-times or natural language interfaces for system queries. Long-term, AI is expected to be a disruptive force that will fundamentally change campus operations.
5. The Rate of Innovation Must Match Student Expectations: Student expectations evolve as fast as technology does. What was once a cutting-edge feature quickly becomes a baseline requirement. To keep pace, EdTech providers must continuously increase their own rate of innovation, leveraging cloud architectures to deliver updates to all clients simultaneously.
6. Success is a Team Sport: In an era of accelerated change and pressure to do more with less, impactful transformation cannot happen in silos. Rasheed's central message to university leaders is to "work as a team," leaning on trusted partners and fostering collaboration to navigate the future successfully and safely.

 

 

Find Rasheed Behrooznia:

LinkedIn                              

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rbehrooznia/

Transact + CBORD

https://www.transactcampus.com/home

 

And find EdTech Connect here:

Web: https://edtechconnect.com/

 

Chapters

• (00:00:00) - The pace of innovation in the United States
• (00:00:42) - Interview
• (00:01:59) - How My College Experience Shaped My Career
• (00:05:14) - Transact Seaboard
• (00:07:25) - Six Rules for a Connected Campus
• (00:10:30) - What innovations in Mobile Credentials are most exciting to students?
• (00:13:30) - How System Engineering Helped Me Lead the EdTech Team
• (00:15:51) - How Do You Balance Innovation and Safety?
• (00:19:53) - WSJDLive: How Close Do You Stay to Your Clients
• (00:21:20) - Transact Seaboard: Student Experience and Fintech
• (00:25:26) - Immersive: AI's Role on Campus
• (00:27:20) - Teamwork for the Next Decade
• (00:28:45) - EdTech Connect