Modo Labs, in partnership with Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), has been recognized as a 2025 AWS Champions Award winner for delivering a student-centric, cloud-powered mobile platform that connects 90,000 students and faculty with critical campus resources. Built on AWS and powered by Modo’s no-code app development platform, Penn State Go delivers a seamless digital experience tailored to the needs of today’s mobile-first learners.

Launched in 2020, Penn State Go brings together diverse systems into a unified, intuitive interface that supports everything from class registration and campus navigation to dining services and shuttle tracking. This project exemplifies how educational institutions can leverage AWS and EdTech innovation to meet the evolving expectations of digital-native students without compromising scalability, performance, or personalization.

Project Overview
Penn State began the initiative with a clear objective: to create an all-in-one digital experience that could scale across 23 campuses while serving the diverse needs of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff. The university turned to Modo Labs — a leader in mobile app platforms for higher education — and AWS to make that vision a reality.

Key features of Penn State Go include:

• Class registration and academic tools: Integration with LionPATH for course enrollment and academic planning 
• Campus mobility: Real-time shuttle tracking and interactive campus maps 
• Campus life: Event calendars, email access, and campus dining via Penn State Eats 
• Personalization at scale: Customized experiences based on user role and campus location 

Challenge: Unifying Systems and Serving Diverse Needs
Creating a unified digital interface for tens of thousands of students across two dozen campuses is no small feat. The Penn State and Modo teams had to integrate a wide range of campus systems and content sources, each with different user expectations and data structures.

To overcome this, Modo’s no-code SaaS platform enabled Penn State to build and iterate rapidly while relying on AWS for back-end performance, resilience, and scalability.

Results: High Adoption, Seamless Experience, Measurable Impact
Since its launch, Penn State Go has achieved impressive adoption and engagement:

• 332,000 downloads and more than 119 million user interactions since 2020 
• 85% of students use the app weekly, making it a core part of the student experience. 
• Supports 90,000 users across 23 Penn State campuses. 
• Delivers access to critical services like registration, events, transportation, food ordering, and communication — streamlining student life on and off campus. 

“Penn State realized the need to talk to students to really understand what they're looking for...For this digital experience to work, it has to help students find the right type of resources at the right time—and that need is always changing. With more and more resources being used, having AWS as our platform gives us the flexibility and the performance that we need to support them.” — Andrew Yu, Founder and President

Setting a New Standard for Higher Ed Digital Experience
The success of Penn State Go showcases how institutions can harness AWS and EdTech to transform student engagement. Modo Labs and Penn State have not only created an award-winning app but also a blueprint for delivering personalized, mobile-first support in higher education.