Posted on 12/19/2009 1:07:07 PM PST by Kid Shelleen
“Save your receipts” may be the rule in the workplace for getting reimbursed for expenses, but those slips of paper are just so much trash to a college student.
That’s what Drexel University student Bradley Ericson pondered as he observed transactions at the checkout counter at campus dining halls.
Students have a meal plan and tap it electronically by using their student identification card. But the cashier still hands over a printed piece of thermal paper. Soon after, that receipt winds up on the floor or counter.
A freshman at Drexel’s LeBow College of Business in the fall of 2008, Ericson thought a digital receipt would be more convenient for the consumer. Digital receipts would also save money for the dining hall, which would not need to buy rolls of paper. That sounded to him like it could be the start of a business plan.
“The convenience factor is the most important,” Ericson said. “I want to make my daily activities easier.”
Today, Ericson has a company, called 3SecondReceipts L.L.C., that tested its software on Drexel servers this fall. (The name came from his research, which found a thermal-paper receipt has an “average life span” of only 3 seconds before it gets wadded up and tossed.)
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
>>Colleges need to encourage more of this type of thinking.<<
Heck yeah. Clever as all get out and they didn’t even mention the fact that it is “green” in the good way.
As a frequent business traveler, I wish all my receipts could be electronic.
He’ll probably be expelled for being a capatalist.
they will probably confiscate all the money he makes.
Yet the luddites in our country insist that voting records be kept on paper; that electronic records are not ‘safe’ or ‘accurate’.
I made this kind of thing for the company I work for. They have an employee cafeteria that is also open to the public.
Touch screen menu, card swiper that does employee badges and credit cards, data base backend, web pages to see the transactions, email prefs for every card (if desired). No cashiers needed.
It was lots of fun making it.
And drug him on Ritalin or Depakote (an especially heavy drug in terms of keeping someone sedated) and shove him into a group home.
He beat me to the idea by thaaaaaat much!
I coulda been a contenda.
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