Visionaire’s AV installation at Al Ain’s United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) was recognised at the 2012 EMEA Project InAVation Global Awards as the ‘Most InAVative Education Facility in 2011’. The annual awards ceremony held in Amsterdam during Integrated Systems Europe 2012, recognises excellence among global AV/ICT systems integrators, consultants, technology designers, project managers and vendors. […]
Visionaire’s AV installation at Al Ain’s United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) was recognised at the 2012 EMEA Project InAVation Global Awards as the ‘Most InAVative Education Facility in 2011’.
The annual awards ceremony held in Amsterdam during Integrated Systems Europe 2012, recognises excellence among global AV/ICT systems integrators, consultants, technology designers, project managers and vendors.
Visionaire was shortlisted from a list of 75 entries and competed with three other finalists from Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom.
The UAEU project
Even as the new classrooms in the UAE-based university consume less electricity, students and teachers enjoy unprecedented integration of technology in education.
The fifty-five (55) and more buildings that make up the integrated new campus is spread over 120 hectares and features approximately 290,000 square metres of newly built, state-of-the-art teaching and recreational facilities, including accommodation for students and university staff. All the buildings on the campus are connected to the UAEU Data Centre located at the Faculty of Information Technology (FIT Building).
Green initiative
UAEU is working towards towards a “paperless” and “inkless” teaching environment with the faculty being able to conduct lectures using all the resources available on the UAEU Cloud without them having to bring presentation laptops or other such devices into the classroom.
To achieve this objective, UAEU has installed an integrated platform device that combines features of both IT and AV. The Arrive RoomPoint Media Processing Appliance is a “thin” device which eliminates needs for PCs in classrooms and includes an AV signal switch and processor that connects directly over the network to a central cloud-based content delivery system. The user interface to faculty is provided by an integrated software solution called Arrive CloudPoint which publishes all the interactive tools and software applications required by faculty centrally. Arrive CloudPoint works with all types of interactive whiteboards which provides a virtual interface for students, faculty and the network system to operate seamlessly. Each classroom is equipped with an automated voice reinforcement system which ensures that the teachers voice reaches the back of the classroom, without the teacher having to strain his or her vocal cords. “The faculty delivers a lesson making notes and annotations to large interactive whiteboards with “virtual ink”. This eliminates chemical usage and toxic waste associated with using ink marker pens and all notes are saved within the system for availability in the archives and as mailed content to students”, says a spokesman for the UAEU Centre for Educational Technology.
Khadamat, a subsidiary of Mubadala Development Company, manages all the facilities at UAEU which includes managing the time-table. The Arrive InfoPoint Resource Schedule Management system ties directly with Khadamats timetable software and UAEUs banner system to accurately publish an entire semesters timetable on interactive displays mounted outside classroom doors. Technology has been used campus-wide be it at the Olympic-sized swimming pool with its automated LED track timing system sensors, the basket-ball courts and the Great Hall where acoustic and echo challenges have been overcome using computer-based audio modeling and sound directivity to achieve clarity of sound.
