It’s graduation season around the world and for what seems like the first time, graduation will not commence per usual. The celebratory hustle and bustle of college campuses at this time of year is now replaced with empty classrooms, haunted hallways and desperate hopes that students will return in the Fall. The truth is, nobody knows what will happen in the Fall semester, but students aren’t the only ones feeling the immediate impacts of campus closures. Colleges and Universities are now scrambling to address not only the concerns of parents, students, and staff but also the significant impacts on endowments, revenues and their budgets going forward.
An Inside Higher Ed survey of 172 campus leaders shows that the number one concern remains bringing the students back to campus safely and continuing their high standards for education off campus. However, the financial focus is right up there, “more presidents citing a desire for financial health and operational planning support (60 percent) than for anything else.” Artificial Intelligence can address operational concerns while freeing up financial resources for other concerns such as faculty training and instructional technology.

While revenues are experiencing immediate impact, the need to protect buildings and assets, ensure environmental compliance is met, and reduce building baseloads becomes more critical as staff and services are less present. After all, students need a campus to return to. Artificial Intelligence, and Maestro specifically, is primed to not only address these impacts in the immediate term but provide long-term stability and digital transformation.
At an operational level, buildings have been closed but the need to maintain them to prevent asset degradation and compliance requirements still need to be met. With fewer people onsite to identify and manage issues and IT stretched with online learning, now more than ever AI and autonomous or remote adoption of solutions need to be applied. At this point, it is likely that there are already significant maintenance backlogs, which AI can address and mitigate future negative impacts of.
The short-term, mid-term and long-term impacts can all be addressed through Maestro artificial intelligence in the following ways:
Short Term: Reduce costs, ensure compliance and protect assets through improved approach to managing assets with limited onsite staff. Optimize baseloads. Identify and prioritize critical failures. Iron out inconsistencies in data. Move to PPM.
Mid Term: Significant cost savings in resource efficiency, maintenance, increase asset life use, reduced capital expenditure.
Long Term: Enhanced scenario modelling for space optimization and asset acquisition ROI assessments.
Benefits like this can be achieved through Maestro’s artificial intelligence and neural network computing capabilities to target significant energy and maintenance cost reduction opportunities through automated, no-cost measures across the campus, eliminating the need for direct human interaction with the on campus assets. A run-rate to deliver a benefit of >$20m annually could easily be achieved in as little as 60 days through a rapid deployment of the technology and the prioritization of the highest energy cost consuming facilities.
In an effort to focus on creating a stable environment for students to come back to, Higher Education Institutions must turn to AI as a remedy for immediate negative financial and operational impacts caused by COVID-19. To learn more about how AI can turn your business operations around, stay tuned for our COVID-19 & AI series or contact our team today to learn more.
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