Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Rasheed Behrooznia: I think that the rate of innovation continues to increase. I mean, it's been
doing this for decades for sure, and now it's just even more. What I've noticed is that the
technology and innovation rate change is matched by expectation.
So anything is literally possible.
And that's what student expectations at some level are as well.
The table stakes of the past are not the table stakes of where we are today.
And so how are we kind of adapting to meet those needs?
[00:00:42] Jeff Dillon: Welcome to another episode of the EdTech Connect podcast. Today's
guest is Rashid Baruznia, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Transact C
CBORD. Rashid brings more than two decades of leadership across technology, engineering
and product strategy at Transact CBORD. He leads a 250 million dollar business serving over
1500 higher education institutions, delivering secure, scalable and student centered ID and
commerce solutions. His work empowers universities to create seamless, safe and connected
campus experiences through cutting edge cloud and mobile technologies. Rashid's background
spans senior roles at Cubic Transportation Systems and Lockheed Martin where he led large
global teams and drove innovations in enterprise software, payments and cloud platforms. A
holder of multiple patents and a recipient of the Hughes Career Achievement Award, Rashid is
not only a tech visionary but also a passionate mentor and collaborator. His leadership at
Transact CBORD is transforming the way students live and learn on campus.
So, Rasheed, it is great to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.
[00:01:56] Rasheed Behrooznia: Jeff, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to chat today.
[00:01:59] Jeff Dillon: Well, let's start with I want to know what one surprising thing about your
college experience that shaped your career today.
[00:02:06] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, I think for many of us college is kind of an enlightening thing
experience where you get an opportunity to kind of explore some new areas that you never
thought maybe was, was interesting before. I think, you know, I, I was a, an engineering student
but I would say a couple of things that definitely caught my attention was I really got attracted to
kind of philosophy and, and some of those, you know, I like the strategic and long term thinking
of a lot of philosophical questions which was a part of me that I never really thought would be
part of my journey. But yeah, the engineering curriculum was something I was very, very
attracted to. Kind of going into college and exploring kind of new thoughts and technology ways
of doing things.
It was just kind of an eye opening experience, just that mind expanding kind of journey that you
all hope for and I was very thankful for that.
[00:03:01] Jeff Dillon: I love the book by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers and it's all about timing.
When you were Born what was around. And it's crazy how people fall into things just based on
when they were born and what's happening.
[00:03:14] Rasheed Behrooznia: That's so true.
[00:03:15] Jeff Dillon: And you've had a diverse journey from Lockheed Martin to Qubit to now
leading Tranzact CBORD.
What key moments guided this path to edtech?
[00:03:26] Rasheed Behrooznia: It's a good question and it kind of follows that previous question you were
asking me. You know, when I, I kind of started my career getting the opportunity to serve and in
defense with Lockheed Martin was something I was exceptionally proud of. Giving back to our
nation and the things that I could do in my own way was exciting. I was always intrigued by how
could I also have experiences that I could share more with my family and friends, you know,
because, you know, the things that we could do at Lockheed, though exceptional, were not so
much things you experience on the day to day, which kind of led me to my experience with cubic
where public transit and the things that we provided out for some of the largest transportation
agencies in North America and across the world. I got to interact with and I found that very, very
cool. There was a number of occasions where I could take my family and my kids on some of
the systems that my team had built and I really, really liked that. And so then taking that kind of
one step further.
Higher ed has always been kind of near and dear to me. I work very closely with the University
of San Diego, serve on a number of advisory boards and helping them with sort of their future
mission and the things that they're looking to do. And when the opportunity came to where I
could help provide that technology on, you know, working with Transact CBORD, I had a jump
on it. It was kind of that dream come true moment where I can be in higher ed but I can also
work on technology innovation, something that my family and friends can get an opportunity to
see. And it was just that, better to be lucky than good kind of experience where I found a
company that kind of meshed very well with desire. So it was great.
[00:05:08] Jeff Dillon: So Transact CBORD serves over 1500 higher ed institutions.
I'd like to just hear from you what the mission is of Transact CBORD and how do you stay
connected to what students and campuses truly need.
[00:05:21] Rasheed Behrooznia: You kind of hit on some of it just in kind of that first piece which is, it's
about the campus, it's about the leaders on campus and their mission to provide the best
experience for their students.
Some of that is safety, whether that's through secure door access, preventing fraud, things that
are compliance with Regulations and just ensuring that information security component
efficiency. I mean, if you think about what a student is going through on their day to day and the
different, you know, they're transitioning from one thing to the next just immediately and then
ensuring that all those systems and administrators are all connected, it's kind of, you know, that
safe efficiency, connected ecosystem to optimize that student experience. That's what it's all
about, how we stay connected to that. We do that in kind of a number of ways. I think, you know,
we strongly believe in and listening really kind of hearing and experiencing some of the
challenges or opportunities that our clients are faced with. We do that with advisory councils, we
have user groups, we do have a user conference where we try to bring all of our clients together.
Regular client check ins. We have technology that's aggregating data around the experiences
that our clients are using. Looking at time of day usage, where there's peaks, where there's
valleys, kind of looking across the landscape. And then I would say we believe heavily on kind of
taking a leadership position in the space our clients have entrusted us.
And they depend on our systems on the daily. And so we take that very seriously. And looking at
ways that we can kind of reinvent or even disrupt ourselves is something that we believe is part
of our responsibility back into our clients.
And so we have a lot of innovation and R and D that goes into rethinking some of our solutions
as we're listening to our client pains. And again, kind of going back to that student experience.
[00:07:25] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, I love the mission. I'd love to learn from the practical side. Your work
centers on creating this safe, efficient, connected campus. Can you break down what that really
means in practical terms for universities?
[00:07:39] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, so I think it kind of starts with the vast use case that you have on a
campus. At a simplistic level, the students are there to learn. At a more complex level, they are
navigating like I was mentioning earlier, they're navigating a lot in their day to day. And it's really
a little smart city. If you were around the different kind of use cases that are experiences you can
think of residential living. So how they're getting access to their living facilities, how are they
eating, whether that's traditional dining halls, whether it's unattended areas where they can grab
and go, vending machines, et cetera, parcel pickup, whether they're going to lockers, they're
going to mail rooms, the things that they're getting access to, wellness centers, mental health,
physical health, gyms, things of that nature, sporting events, all these use cases, bringing them
together in. In a seamless experience as opposed to disjoint one off use cases is exceptionally
important to those students.
While doing that, ensuring that their information is secure, that they're using a technology that
they can trust in, that the campus is providing that experience and that our solutions have high
uptime and reliability, and then making sure that we can support a wide range of. Of those
different use cases too. Because really, when you think about it, there's new things that the
students need to get access to on the daily. Like I'll give you a couple examples. You know,
there's more. That traditional use case that I was talking about with dining, with parking, laundry,
all those kind of traditional things, or even like makerspaces, Students getting access to
makerspaces, how can they use a 3D printer for some things that they're trying to cultivate or
getting access to other machine technology?
How is the campus providing that onto the students in a way that they don't have to manually do
that, but it's automated within their system. Either have access to use that facility, or it's on a
usage basis, Just bringing that all together in again, kind of that seamless experience while
ensuring that high uptime and while ensuring that it's all just a safe and robust ecosystem.
[00:09:53] Jeff Dillon: I'm remembering my time back when I was in Sacramento State.
The last decade of my career was about mobile.
And one thing I think we share here is a passion for really using mobile technology to help
students at that foundational level, Almost like a basic needs. Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Right. You need to have access and have your basic needs taken care of before you can
succeed in coursework and excel in your clubs and things like that. So at SAC State, what we
did is had an app. It was an app that would allow people to sign up for when there's free food left
on campus because California was going through a basic needs struggle. So that's just my quick
story, but I think it's a bridge into this question about mobile. What innovations in mobile
credentials and cloud technology are the most exciting to you right now?
[00:10:40] Rasheed Behrooznia: Let me maybe a little bit kind of a rewind the clock when mobile first come
out and when I'm talking about mobile, I guess mobile credential is one area that I want to focus
in on. And when I'm talking about mobile credentials, really what I'm talking about is the student
and their profile, most commonly known as their student id.
Who is this? What is their student ID number and what are they able to do?
What we've done is we've taken that student ID and that person credential and then worked with
some very large companies to put that into the handsets, whether it's iPhone or Android based
phones, to where their ID is digitized in the secure element of those phones.
They're then able to use their phone, their watch and that technology to kind of go about those
experiences that we've been talking about.
So kind of rewinding, when we first brought that out, we were very, very excited about bringing
that technology.
And I think the students that got access to it, they saw that as well. Of course it was as exciting
and new. And this is a first of its ever kind being rolled out.
I think their expectation was, well, yeah, that makes sense, it should be that way. And I think
what I've seen is the adoption rate of that solution just skyrocket. For one, we've rolled out
Mobile to over 200 institutions within North America and then we've seen an adoption rate of
nearly 90% of those institutions. Their students have adopted that digital credential in their digital
wallet. And that's an exciting time. I think that's kind of the first thing. I think the second is what
can we do with that? And I'll give you kind of another example. So one of our solutions is using a
mobile ordering app where the students can order their food and have it ready for them when
they arrive.
Well, if you think about it in a traditional sense, you order something, yeah, there's a standard
time that it will take to kind of create that and when it'll be available.
But the other things that are going on, the time of day, the time of year, the kitchen load, all
those factors could create differences in how long it takes for that to be prepared. And provided
we rolled out some machine learning and AI to help one calculate all those things and provide
more precise time around that when that order will be ready for the students. And so I think
what's exciting to me right now is that the table stakes of having that digital credential is here, it's
here and now. I think it's what can we do on top of that to continue to optimize and provide more,
I don't know, higher level experiences and more, even more advantage to that student
experience.
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[00:13:59] Jeff Dillon: So Rasheed, you talked a little bit about the mobile technology there. I'm
curious how your background in systems engineering and defense has helped you in this
leadership role in the edtech space.
[00:14:12] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, a few things for sure. I mean I, I kind of hinted on this earlier and I
think it's worth renoting the systems that we provide out to our, our clients are really mission
critical.
I mean they rely on them for their daily operation and we're talking about millions of students
across our campuses.
The operations of whether it's collecting money, distributing money, ensuring that transactions
are flowing so students can eat, so they can access their facilities for living and secure facilities
for the things they're trying to do. These are truly mission critical applications.
I think the diligence around systems engineering and that elaboration and elicitation of
requirements, both functional and non functional requirements, that's kind of core to system
engineering practice. I think that has helped kind of round out at least how I view the space. I
know our engineering teams, which I know I'm biased, but I believe they're world class
engineering teams. I think they, they think in those same fashions they really think about
ensuring the high, well, all the functional and non functional requirements. And I think, you know,
system engineering is a practice is important and you leverage that with some of the
methodologies that development teams use today with agile and other practice. I think the
combination of that provides a very strong output for our clients. I mean our focus on product
management starts with elicitation of requirements and that's really what system engineering is
all about.
[00:15:51] Jeff Dillon: So with a $250 million business under your wing, how do you balance
innovation with this scale and reliability?
[00:16:00] Rasheed Behrooznia: I'll start off by saying it's not easy. I don't mean what I do is not easy, but
the decision making is not easy. Any given day there's hundreds of good ideas around stability,
enhancement, information security, compliance, innovation and we're weighing the prioritization
of those on the daily. And then when you have such a broad reach of clients, if there's, you
know, specific client needs that you're also weighing in all those, the way that we do that is really
kind of looking at the portfolio, kind of stepping back and looking at it in aggregate. You know,
where, where are the solutions in the life cycle? Are we on a phase where we've got a heavy
innovation cycle because we're trying to bring something new and disrupt is the solution that we
have in a phase where we're maturing and growing or we later in the cycle where we're ensuring
reliability and safety and kind of stepping back and looking at that. And then of course, like I was
mentioning earlier, kind of weighing the input that we received, the listening that we've done,
where are the pains we try to elicit so much feedback that we use that data to drive a lot of our
decision making.
Like you start to get where you get a number of, you know, for lack of a better word, more votes
in an area where something is needed and that becomes kind of a prioritization.
I think in regards to that too. Like one of the things that I'm very excited about with cloud and
some of our technology is that we can support all of that at a faster cycle. So our clients use a
multi tenant cloud architecture.
So when we innovate or we provide an update or we're enhancing the solution, it goes
instantaneously out to all of our clients. And so that cycle time between innovation, ideation and
then our client realizing that is much shorter. And so it's an exciting time. And that cloud
technology coupled with rapid innovation and ideation that's going on in the space today, I love
that kind of intersection. But yeah, like you said, it's with such a big portfolio, the decision making
and really the what we're not doing, decisions are very hard.
[00:18:18] Jeff Dillon: It's a challenging with such scale as you grow a business like this, how do
you foster that culture of collaboration and continuous improvement?
[00:18:29] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, it could be harder. I would say this might be one of those areas
where I got lucky. And what do I mean by that? Our teams, they kind of operate this more
inherently. I could rattle off a number of names of my team and across our company, where
people have been working in higher education for 10, 15, 20, even 30 plus years and they do it
because they love it, they're passionate about it. They wake up every single day thinking about
how can I make this better?
And that was one thing that when I came to transact CBORD, it really resonated with me. You
want to work with people that are inherently curious, interested and kind of want to always make
something better. And in that spirit of I think I got lucky is I think our team has that culture
inherently now. You can't just sit back and rely on that in the go forward. And so we try to
definitely make sure we've got a culture of continuous improvement. We've got a number of
ways that we do that with retrospectives, evaluations, how things rolled out.
We have this concept of being very data driven in our solutions. So I think it's good to have a
hypothesis, it's good to think about all the input that we've received. But at the end of the day,
how did it actually roll out when we got that out into the field? And so that transparent continuous
improvement is kind of core to that.
[00:19:53] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, it's all about customer engagement. And I also see a lot of
companies at this stage really struggle with that.
How do you personally stay close to your clients?
[00:20:05] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, there's a number of things that we do. I kind of talked about the
regional user conferences. We've got a big user conference. We've got a number of client
panels and advisory boards. I think on top of that, we do look for as many situations where we
can have engagement with the client, whether it's being on campus, regular connecting points.
We take issues or challenges that is ongoing very seriously to where we engage a large part of
our organization. Frankly speaking, all the way to our executive team. I can tell you there's a
number of scenarios that I engage on on a regular basis and it keeps us, I think it keeps us
grounded. There could be ways where other companies may want to segment that out into
another area and keep it more compartmentalized.
We haven't done that. We keep that across our entire teams all the way to our executive team. I
think that does make sure that we stay very connected with, with that engagement at a personal
level, like, you know, truly our team with the client through any of those challenges, things that
they're facing. And I, you know, I'm very proud of that, to be honest.
[00:21:20] Jeff Dillon: Well, the question I really want to get to, because you have a different
perspective than a lot of my guests, is how you think students expectations are evolving and
how Transact CBORD is adapting to meet those shifts.
[00:21:35] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, I think that the, the rate of innovation continues to increase. I mean,
it's been doing this for decades for sure, and now it's just even more. What I've noticed is that
the technology and innovation rate changes is matched by expectation.
Anything is literally possible.
And that's what student expectations at some level are as well. The table stakes of the past are
not the table stakes of where we are today.
How are we adapting to meet those needs?
Well, our rate of innovation has had to increase.
Our adoption of AI and solutions to help optimize how we're operating, what we're bringing to our
solutions and helping our campuses has also increased.
And you know, we're, we're kind of leaning into ways that we can one collaborate with our clients
and some new technology and solutions that we're bringing out. And then we're also seeing like,
what can we do more to kind of help them so they can focus on that student experience? I
mean, I think we understand it well. Our clients understand it exceptionally well. They are the,
they are the experts in that student experience because they're on their day to day. The way that
we're really leaning into it is what can we do so they can focus on that student experience. We of
course want to provide technology that supports it, but we also want to take things out of their
hands that they're having to worry about so they can focus even more and more on that student
expectation.
[00:23:13] Jeff Dillon: Yeah, well, Transact CBORD is a leader in payment tech and student
experience.
How do you see if you see fintech and edtech converging any further?
[00:23:24] Rasheed Behrooznia: We actually have a large portion of our business that operates kind of in
that, that hybrid fintech edtech base. You know, my, my businesses are more centered around
the EdTech component. We do have. One of my peers runs our payments business, which is
centered around fintech. For edtech. What I really love about that is we can look at the ways in
which fintech is advancing the types of payment tenders, the technology around fraud and
different, you know, use of wallets and payment types and then mirror that in the way that we
support education.
And so, you know, we've looked very closely on ways that we can kind of bring those two things
together.
Also I kind of hinted on this earlier, which is we have a big analytics portion of our business
where we're ingest information from how the student IDs are getting leveraged, how the dining
and food and commerce is happening and then as well as how the payment and tuition is all
operating on the campus. And what's kind of, I mean, it's very interesting. The aggregation of
that data and the insights that come out of it is very, very interesting. Ironically enough, we call
that our insights platform. But you know, I think there's a lot of ways that we can see unique
experiences throughout that ecosystem. And then, you know, the way that I look at education
relative to kind of fintech is there's a lot of parallels. I mean, you've got, I would say a little bit
more of an education focused ecosystem, but it has the same kind of experiences. Like I was
saying, that's that smart city kind of a feel where they're navigating, you know, needs like food
and living and events. And that's the Same kind of thing that's happening kind of in a city. And so
I think that parallel is, is, you know, it provides for a lot of leverage both back and forth.
[00:25:26] Jeff Dillon: Well, what's your view on AI, the role in campus technology, how you see
it at Transact CBORD? Will it be an enhancement or a disruption? What's your take on that?
[00:25:36] Rasheed Behrooznia: Little. Both. I think the reality is institutions are under a lot of pressure.
They're faced with what can they do. They're asked to do more with less, whether that's funding
or actual people, resources.
And I think AI will help. You know, the way that we're approaching it is I kind of talked about this
earlier, like what can we do to solve some of those challenges and how can we provide some AI
to help streamline some of the operations? We've actually rolled out three AI products over the
last year. A lot of it natural language kind of pieces where operators can ask questions about
their operation, about their system and get immediate feedback. And I do feel like that will
continue to advance a great deal. I think it will change how some of the operation occurs. I think
in the short term it will help streamline the operation. I think long term there will be disruption
around how that occurs. I think a lot remains to be seen, but it's clear it's going to change and
disrupt.
[00:26:42] Jeff Dillon: I have a comment, not really a question, but my son is college age and he
is kind of anti AI and very much like does not want to use facial recognition on his iPhone or
anywhere. You know, that's kind of where we're all going, right? We just know who's where and
it's going to be idea to ideas. But that generation, I think he might be a little bit of an outlier
because he's a tech guy, but it's just really interesting to hear him say that people might use that.
[00:27:05] Rasheed Behrooznia: Yeah, I mean it's change curve. On any change, everybody's on on the
change curve. I, you know, I, I think there's early adopters and there takes a time when table
stakes, you know what I mean? And I think we're along that journey.
[00:27:20] Jeff Dillon: To close it out. If you could leave one message for university leaders
shaping the campus experience for the next decade, what would that message be?
[00:27:27] Rasheed Behrooznia: I think whether it's sort of my background with sports, I'm a big believer of
a team and I think the message that I would share is work as a team. Nobody kind of goes along
these journeys alone. Impactful things that change the world or navigating tough waters I think a
team helps you get there both faster and safer. And the rate of change is going to continue to
accelerate as we kind of talked about. And the pressures are high. And so I guess the thing I
would say is lean on the partners you trust, bring others into the conversation, kind of lean into
that collaboration. Just feel like as things are reshaped, that teamwork is going to deliver a
higher output. And, you know, hopefully for my clients, if any of them are listening, you know,
hopefully they know that we're here along that journey. But for others, just those partners and
those companies that you trust, those peers, just do it as a team and together a lot can be
accomplished.
[00:28:30] Jeff Dillon: Well, thank you, Rasheed. It was great having you on the show. I will put
links to your Transact CBORD company website in the show notes as well as to Rasheed's
LinkedIn, but it was a great talk.
Love what you're doing.
[00:28:41] Rasheed Behrooznia: I really appreciate it, Jeff. Thank you. Bye.
[00:28:43] Jeff Dillon: Bye.
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