Even if you’re looking for information on a smartphone, you will still land on websites or other data sources, digging for the information you need; asking a question from a voice-based virtual assistant can be a much faster process.

For students matriculating to Saint Louis University in fall 2018, they will have Amazon Echo Dots in their dorm rooms to answer the important questions that all students need to know. In addition to providing general information from the web, each of the 2,300 devices in the residence hall rooms are custom programmed to answer queries about campus information and activities.

“[We] attract a very active student,” said David Hakanson (pictured), vice president and chief information officer of Saint Louis University. “We don’t want them to be spending time searching for information. We want them to get that information immediately.”

To discuss how the university worked with AWS, as well as how Echo Dot can expand the learning experience for students, Hakanson spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Imagine: A Better World event in Seattle, Washington.

A three-month concept to completion

Working with students, the University undertook a six-week pilot program of different virtual assistant technologies to see what students really liked, and they chose the Amazon Echo system. Once the final decision was made, they were able to go from concept to completion in three months. That worked out great for the University, because it wanted to have the devices ready in time for the 2018 fall semester.

“We were able to use [AWS’] partner ecosystem to allow us to move very quickly, and through that process engaging our students, engaging our stakeholders, to make sure that the device was going to meet their needs, not just be something that looked good on their desk,” Hakanson said.

Regarding the future of Echo Dot, Hakanson explained that Alexa for Business was the differentiator for Saint Louis University. Using the tool and its ecosystem, the university is able to manage and group the devices. For example, it can group a learning community of engineering students and give them specialized skills or allow them to develop a unique skill that is only available on their personal devices, helping them to practice building apps for their own Echo Dots.

“The ability to manage these [devices] allowed us to really focus on that educational experience, allow students to start creating skills, and then be able to manage and deploy them at scale,” Hakanson concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Imagine: A Better World event.

 Photo: SiliconANGLE