Proof that the best ideas come from Universities

PLEASE, TIM HORTON'S, USE THIS EVERYWHERE

KELOWNA – UBCO staff may have solved a nation-wide productivity problem when they installed a live-streaming camera so students and staff can monitor the line-up at the campus Timmy's. Are you watching, Tim Horton's?

It started with the IT department trying to figure out when they could get coffee and be back within an hour, says Rosemary-Jean Thompson, media IT manager.

"A little while later, a professor said 'you know what, it would be great if we had a camera that could tell us how long the line is,'" she says. "We put it up and tested it and it went live a few weeks ago."

She said between classes, sometimes the line is 20 to 30 people long with most of them standing outdoors in view of the web cam. 

So far, it appears to be working—and drawing some attention to UBCO's new UBCO.tv station. 

To contact a reporter for this story, email Marshall Jones at mjones@infotelnews.ca, call 250-718-2724 or tweet @marshalljones23