Multicard Facilitates Campus Card Technology Migration

Multicard, a business unit of Identive Group, Inc., announced it is implementing a new, secure identity card platform for the Auraria Higher Education Center (AHEC) Campus in Denver, CO. The new contactless smart cards initially will be utilized within the campus’s existing door access system; students with a campus bank account can also use the IDs as a Visa debit card.

The new ID cards are based on open standards technology, allowing them to be integrated with additional applications for student services over time. Other applications planned for the cards include parking, meal payment, library check-out, event management and various tracking capabilities for lab and recreational center use as well as emergency incidents.

The AHEC Campus is a unique educational site located in the heart of the Denver Metro area, hosting three separate educational institutions: the Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State College of Denver and the University of Colorado-Denver. The campus serves more than 45,000 students, faculty and staff on an annual basis. A number of shared services exist on the joint campus, including the central issuance of institution-specific identity cards to all students and faculty.

Multicard has provided the AHEC campus with card personalization systems for a number of years to provide physical access to campus facilities.

“AHEC is pleased and satisfied with this upgrade; this project would have been very difficult to implement without the technical support provided to us by Multicard,” said Shaqaiq Birashk of AHEC’s ID Cards Office.

“The Auraria campus is establishing best practices for campus environments in terms of implementing a multi-function contactless card,” said Hugo Garcia, president of Multicard U.S. “By electing to utilize standards-based smart cards, they are benefitting from the highest level of encryption technology while avoiding the costs and inflexibility associated with proprietary card platforms.”