Case Study: Drenthe College improves campus space utilization and collaboration with Microsoft Azure and Office 365

Dutch college enhances student and faculty collaboration with Smart Campus solutions

Drenthe College, a Dutch educational institution, faced the challenge of optimizing its limited campus space to accommodate the dynamic needs of its 11,000 students and 1,000 staff. Their static, manual room-scheduling system was inefficient, often reporting rooms as full when they were actually vacant, leading to frustration and nearly triggering costly construction projects.

Partnering with Microsoft and Winvision, the college implemented a Smart Campus solution using Microsoft Azure, including IoT Hub and Machine Learning, and Office 365. Sensors tracked room occupancy and environmental data, feeding into a predictive model and a new mobile booking portal. This provided real-time space availability, eliminating wasted time searching for rooms and increasing space utilization from 40-50% to 60-80%. The solution also saved an estimated €150,000 in infrastructure costs and created a unified productivity portal for students and faculty.

Drenthe College

Jacco Heikoop

ICT Manager