HotSpot and NBCC: A Perfect Match

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 NBCC’s IT academic programs as well as its Centre for Applied Research in Mobile & Ubiquitous Computing. In 2018, NBCC and HotSpot partnered to develop, prototype, test, and commercialize solutions for surface and garage parking operators. By partnering with NBCC 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+ NBCC 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.

About 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. NBCC 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