The audiovisual project at the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo not only provides current tools to achieve objectives today, but also changes and improves the educational dynamics.
AVIXA
Creating educational spaces with state-of-the-art technology that at the same time can overcome the obstacle of generational gaps between students and teachers, was one of the most important challenges at the time of building the medical simulation center of the Faculty of Medicine at the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo.
This project, in charge of the Mexican company and member of AVIXA, Grupo Niza, between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, consisted of the installation of AV systems in different spaces, such as a surgery room, divisible auditoriums, meeting rooms, classrooms, simulation rooms with Gesell cameras, and a practice room, with interaction with each other and centralized coordination and administration.
For Maru Gaitán, CEO of Nice, in addition to the need to give all users of this technology the tools to enhance their knowledge and graduate more and better prepared for their future work in medicine, it was essential to design an intuitive project, which could be easily used by all generations that converge at the University, from Baby Boomers to Millennials.
"This is the evolution that educational delivery needs, which the last generations can assimilate in their digital present," explained Antonio Gaitán, CTO of the company, for his part he was responsible for ensuring that the project, in addition to complying with this strategy, had a design that offered a useful life of at least ten years, before reaching technological obsolescence, to obtain the highest possible return with the investment of the University.
Thus, the Faculty of Medicine now has a flexibility not available before. For example, an operating room that allows, through audiovisual technology, observation from an attached room, recording of sessions and sharing to other spaces on campus; simulation rooms equipped with specialized interactive mannequins, with adjacent Gesell cameras, which have recording and transmission systems to classrooms and meeting rooms; a general practice room where you can observe the practices carried out in the simulation rooms in real time, as well as share multimedia content.
The School of Medicine also has an auditorium that can be separated into two different environments, where all the necessary systems were installed to present all kinds of multimedia content or watch live streaming of the practices carried out in the practice or simulation rooms.
Maru recalled that another significant challenge was the location of the project, since "the operation, coordination and installation were outside Mexico City (where the headquarters of Nice is), which made it necessary for the teams "to go to live a season in the state of Hidalgo." In addition, it was necessary to "work in extraordinary hours, but as we say in Mexico, our people 'took out the caste' and everyone gave their best." She highlights that the project received support from all areas of the company "including logistics, warehouse, purchasing, because all the equipment had to arrive in a precise time".
AV technology, a tool for training
For the CEO of Nice, this project is more special than most, since from a very young age it has been oriented to promote learning. Her father, the founder of the Nice Group, asked her and her brothers "to go out into the world to learn and when we had something to contribute, we came to the company", and that was precisely what started her career.
She remembers that, after returning to the company and spending some time working, she decided she "wanted more", so she went to work in the world of film production. Later he returned to the AV industry, contributing the knowledge he had acquired, and discovering that one of his great passions is "to be able to open the eyes of people who do not know the AV world, one of the things that gives me the greatest satisfaction". Currently, Maru also supports the industry and AVIXA in the AVIXA Foundation, actively promoting the educational programs and benefits provided by the foundation.
Precisely for this reason is that the project of the University of Hidalgo is a pride for her and her team, which was planned, designed and executed "to be a role model" for the entire university and research community. The project not only provides current tools to achieve goals today, but also changes and improves the educational dynamics. Teamwork, transparency and ease of sharing and storing information, usability, are increasingly common needs in work tools, and it is very pleasant to find educational entities that promote these new environments.
Likewise, Maru comments that "when we understand in depth the needs of the client and see beyond the obvious, we can exceed their expectations and do something that really surprises them", which was achieved in this project, added to the experience obtained when designing it, "because any educational technological project must be supported in a curriculum that integrates and complements the digital tools that will be implemented".
