Education Policy, Business and Technology

After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico University Turns to the Cloud to Restore Student Services

Campus Technology: On Sept. 20, when Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico with 155 mile-per-hour winds, the storm knocked out the island's energy grid, eliminating access to electricity and clean water for almost everybody. It also tore down 1,360 of the 1,600 cellphone towers on the island, leaving many people in communication isolation. As the territory's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, declared in a prepared statement, "What Puerto Rico is experiencing after Hurricane Maria is an unprecedented disaster." The "devastation," he added, "is vast. Our infrastructure and energy distribution systems suffered great damages."

Amid the wide-scale destruction of homes and businesses, colleges and universities on the island also closed down. But the head of one school, Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, wasn't going to wait for federal action to get up and running again. President Gilberto Marxuach turned to Dynamic Campus, a service provider on the mainland the institution had been in recent negotiations with for an ERP integration project.

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