OCAS (Ontario College Application Service) is the link between prospective applicants and Ontario’s public colleges. Each year, we help over 200,000 individuals research college programs, connect with Ontario’s colleges and complete their college applications. We are also a shared service provider for colleges and system partners, delivering centralized technology solutions, financial services, and data collection and reporting.

Technology and innovation are at the heart of our business. Over the course of 18 months, we’ve expanded our services beyond our centralized, web-based desktop application to college, to develop a college-branded application and a mobile app. To do this, we reinvented our organizational strategy – including our approach to technology, organizational structure, project management framework, stakeholder engagement model and governance. We’ve explored and discarded technology stacks, learned to create smaller components for faster build cycles, boxed smaller investments of time and money in the creation of products, and invited our stakeholders to prototype and pilot with us on feature and product development.

Our journey toward mobile is the prime example of how we’ve reinvented to stay competitive in the technology and innovation landscape. And now we’d like to share what we’ve learned with you.