OPINION | Next Gen Digital Technology: A Must Have

Written by Reece Radford

I spent almost six years at Deakin University supporting, maintaining, and designing audiovisual (AV) systems. When I joined Deakin in 2014, they already had a digital policy of students having the ability for remote learning, fulfilled by either recording the lectures to be viewed on-demand or by having remote learning centers set up with AV and video conferencing equipment connected to the main lecture on campus.

Meeting rooms without video conferencing were in the very small minority. The eSolutions team I was on was spread across multiple campuses and projects. The team began integrating the Zoom platform with the Cisco video conferencing platform around 2018, so most of the staff and a high percentage of students were used to either meeting or learning remotely.

When we were all sent to work from home in the first quarter of 2020, it was a fairly painless transition. Of course, we had to set up home offices, with varied results, but in terms of meeting and working, Deakin staff and students were ready. While working at La Trobe University in the last quarter of 2021, I was introduced to Innomate, an enterprise SaaS platform that manages your entire IoT ecosystem. La Trobe had already engaged Innomate not only to provide a control platform using Crestron VC4 but also to provide a full monitoring solution. When Innomate founder Paul Yahchouchy gave me a demo of the Innomate platform and its capabilities, I was blown away!

From having AV system visibility to scaling up room designs using templates (drag and drop, build a room and go, etc.) and using fail-over servers, I was impressed by how little or no impact this would have on the user. Innomate personnel was also extremely helpful and knowledgeable, and most had, at some stage, worked for an AV integration company and understood the pain points that came with programming an AV system and how crucial system monitoring is, particularly Hyflex teaching spaces and meeting rooms.

When I joined Introba in the second quarter of 2022 and joined the Impact Fund project team, my experience with Innomate encouraged me to jump on board. I understand the importance of having not just a fully functional hybrid AV space but also a system in the background that can have core IT principles, including observability, availability, supportability, open standards, scalability, flexibility, reusability, security, standardization, and ease of use, but also one that can be organically and seamlessly integrated into the IT environment.

Remote meetings, working, and hybrid teaching have never had such a high level of importance, they used a be nice to have, potentially a selling point to prospective academics, students, or employees, but now they are a must-have.