As hybrid learning continues to become a more prominent and popular form of education throughout the pandemic, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Dubai recently determined that it needs an easy-to-use AV solution that would deliver the highest AV technologies to ensure remotely located students feel just as engaged as those sitting in the school’s classrooms.
Seeking a simple-to-use and reliable AV system, RIT Dubai turned to ClearOne (NASDAQ: CLRO), a global market leader enabling conferencing, collaboration, and network streaming solutions, for the solution that would meet its unique needs.
“It was imperative that all of our students, regardless of their location, could clearly see and hear the lecturer,” said Khalil Darwish, Director of IT for RIT Dubai. For RIT Dubai, the key to a successful installation was finding a solution that allowed both the lecturer and students to focus on the lecturers’ content and not have to worry about the underlying technology.
As a proof of concept of the solution which Alpha Data, the system integrator for this project, had designed for RIT Dubai, the integrator equipped a ‘mock’ classroom in RIT’s old campus with the ClearOne solution.
“The demo enabled us to take a hands-on approach and we were extremely impressed with the ease of use of ClearOne’s solution, and the exceptional levels of audio and video quality it delivered,” added Darwish.
With Darwish’s approval, Alpha Data installed a complete ClearOne solution that included a COLLABORATE® Versa Pro 50 kit, COLLABORATE® Versa Lite™ CT, CONVERGE® Pro 2 48VT advanced microphone auto mixer, LS6CT ceiling speakers, BMA 360 ceiling tile beamforming mic array and UNITE® 150 PTZ camera.
In addition to the high-quality technology, an influential factor in choosing ClearOne was that many of the solutions’ components could be ordered locally. This convenience allowed Alpha Data to meet RIT Dubai’s requirement to complete the installation as a matter of urgency.
“The fact that its products were available locally provided a real competitive edge for ClearOne,” explained Darwish. “ClearOne’s distribution and logistics teams worked very closely with us to deliver solutions to meet our very tight timeline. This reflects the high levels of support and maintenance which it delivers.”
The AV solution has become a vital tool in enabling RIT Dubai to successfully conduct various educational programs outside of lectures, including seminars and presentations.
“We recommend ClearOne to our clients because it offers a complete AV conferencing solution from a single vendor and can deliver a range of solutions from tabletop plug & play systems to professional configurable high-end audio solutions,” emphasized Jinesh Shah, Team Lead, ELV & AV, for Alpha Data. “Plus, from a systems integrator’s perspective, ClearOne’s system architecture enables us to deploy solutions for our customers, including RIT Dubai, quickly and easily.”
Although the ClearOne solution is primarily used in a learning environment, it is now being deployed to facilitate general business meetings for the institution as well.
“For any organization looking to deploy an AV solution, I would suggest that they look no further than ClearOne,” said Darwish. “The superior quality of its audio and video has meant that in a teaching environment all of our learners are completely immersed in their lectures. This is of critical importance for our remote students.”
