English
Renowned as The Oscars of the AV world, the Inavation Awards 2020 was staged for the 14th year on the evening of the first day of Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) – February 11, at the venue of Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam. After a busy schedule at the exhibition, visitors and exhibitors swarmed there to witness the revealing of “achievement of the year” in AV industry.
The Inavation Awards are the benchmark for Systems Integrators, Consultants and Technology Managers throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond. These annual awards recognize and celebrate outstanding AV design, integration and management globally. The best project work and most forward-thinking manufacturers are celebrated alongside outstanding distributors, project managers and consultants. The 12 project awards categories include corporate, education, government, healthcare, and hospitality, etc., in which over 300 projects are contesting and coming down to 81 finalist entries. The Room XIX at The United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG) represented by TAIDEN Swiss distributor Media Vision, is announced winner among five candidates in the government category.
Room XIX at UNOG
Room XIX, a conference room in the United Nations office in Geneva was donated by the state of Qatar and reopened with a lavish inauguration ceremony in November 2019 following a 12-month renovation period. TAIDEN Swiss distributor, conference room expert Media Vision, provided the room's turnkey AV project delivery after seeing off competition in a tender process launched by the project's architect and design consultant Peia Associati. With six months on site to deliver a world class conference and interpretation experience, the team worked on a tight schedule through dusty building works to deliver the project on time.
The scale of the room cannot be understated, with the main conference area requiring 44km of cabling under the floor. The capacity of the new hall of Qatar is 800 seats making this hall for plenary assemblies the largest room of the UN Geneva, with the most advanced technical specifications.
A total of 330 customized TAIDEN multimedia terminals provide the backbone of Room XIX, with a screen available at every seat, including a full HD 12-inch monitor with four video selection buttons so that users can choose what is displayed on the screen, ie. the camera feed or on-screen presentation. we also have an info button which is mostly for the speak and request list so that the user can follow who is speaking and who will be the follow up speaker.” On the podium, VIP seats are equipped with a 14-in screen version with paperless conferencing module, allowing convenient media viewing experience and control of conference procedures such as sign-in and voting.
TAIDEN Paperless Multimedia Delegate Unit
TAIDEN Paperless Multimedia Chairman Unit
There are two E-Ink nameplates at each desk, one at the front allowing for easy identification during conferences, and a smaller one on the user's side to assist with navigation as delegates are guided to their seat. These nameplates can also be used to send global messages to delegates from the control room, or even individual messages. If a delegate has the floor and is speaking too quickly, the interpreter can use a button that will display a 'please speak slowly' message on this delegate's individual nameplate. The conference systems include a card identification feature and a channel selector, with the UN requiring a European socket, a Swiss socket and a USB charger for smartphones present on each conference system.
TAIDEN E-ink Nameplate at each desk
For the main wing of the room, a gooseneck microphone connector is featured. A customized model in the press wing swaps the gooseneck connector for an XLR connector to allow for the recording of audio in any selected language.
Above the main conference area is a visitor’s gallery and control room, with an AMX touchscreen central command panel, and TAIDEN conference management system software that includes a layout to allow for the individual opening and closing of microphones.
A TAIDEN mixing table allows for the creation of pre-set volume settings for individual speakers to automatically kick in when their microphone is activated. The operator can identify if a speaker is too quiet and increase the volume. When the microphone is closed but later reopened, the settings will remain in memory, with up to 4000 “memories” able to be saved.
The Control Room
For an international organization like the UN, accurate and timely communication in a plethora of languages was a top priority and the interpreter booth suite in Room XIX is no exception. The newest TAIDEN interpreter console has seven relays and three output buttons, that conforms to the latest ISO norms. Each interpreter has their own individual monitor with four source selection buttons so they can choose to see the camera, a PowerPoint presentation or the speak and request list. The facility also features its own dedicated sign language interpretation booth, purpose-built for the interpretation of spoken language to sign language, which is a world's first. The interpreter uses a TAIDEN infrared receiver to listen, and stands in front of the 4K camera, facing a 43-in Sony display adjustable for different heights. They can select visual presets from an AMX touchscreen. The video is then sent in a picture-in-picture on the large screen or as a full screen source on the individual monitors at each desk.
The sign language interpretation booth
Room XIX has certainly been an ambitious and challenging project, and also a real source of inspiration for future projects. There have been multiple conferences held in the Room since its inauguration last year. Attendees are inevitably amazed when they first stepped into such a technology-driven meeting venue. The conference management team at UNOG expressed their content with the project from design, construction to delivery. They even intend to bring similar ideas and application to other projects in the future.
Winning an award like Inavation is surely a leap of peer recognition on the basis of user satisfaction, while our destination is to make them believe the best is yet to come, always from TAIDEN!
