IdeaHub: Continuity & Collaboration in the New Normal

The world has been hit hard by the pandemic since it started and continues to be so today. During the protracted outbreak, ICT has been showing its full potential in helping to combat the spread of the virus and in achieving continuity in business, healthcare, and education.

The pandemic is being fought primarily by preventing the virus from entering communities and by lowering the risk of it spreading in already-infected communities. Preventing entry of the virus can take place in numerous scenarios: airports, train stations, ports, bus stops, and other transportation hubs and services.  To lower the risk of further spread, the process to follow is discover, detect, isolate, and treat.

• Discover: find potential carriers and suspected infections.
• Detect: deploy (virtual) checkpoints with comprehensive community and work area coverage with closed management and efficient precautions and services, including temperature checks, resident registration, and exit/entry cards.
• Isolate: implement telehealth, remote working, and eLearning to enable self-isolation and reduce the risk of cross-infection.
• Treat: provide AI-assisted diagnosis, remote consultations and clinical collaboration services, online hospitals and computer-aided, large-scale drug testing.

In previous posts, such as Back to the Office: Navigating the New Normal, I’ve advocated a horizontal layer of secure and converged (mobile) broadband connectivity that overlays information silos with intelligent connectivity. Huawei has combined several specific solution scenarios that tie into several industry domains that specifically support the management and control during an epidemic outbreak. These industries are healthcare, public services, eGovernance, industrial areas (tech parks) and communities, and education.

In this post, I want to expand the look on solutions that can respond to the new normal: a time of technology acceleration powered by the “isolate” concept where work, education, and health are shifting more to an online model that complements the physical world.

The “new normal” that will shape the post-pandemic environment is likely to include solutions that blend the online and physical worlds to create greater efficiencies, promote real-time information-sharing across multiple devices and mediums, and keep costs low by minimizing business travel when its not strictly necessary.

Meet IdeaHub

IdeaHub is a solution for information-sharing across teams and departments — a productivity tool for the smart office — that bundles intelligent writing, High Definition (HD) video conferencing, intelligent white board and wireless sharing. A Red Dot Award 2020 winner, IdeaHub is designed to suit any environment and effortlessly turns conference rooms, executive offices, and open areas into smart spaces and.

In regular meetings, video conferencing is a great tool to meet remotely and share information across teams and departments. People don’t need to travel and meet in person, which today is still high-risk, invariably time-consuming, and expensive. However, existing systems are very manual in operations and use. Latency tends to be high, plug-and-play functionality low, and collaboration tools are relatively weak.

So what does IdeaHub bring to the table?

• IdeaHub’s smart touchscreen whiteboard enables 4K HD multi-party conferencing and collaboration screens in multiple locations with an unparalleled level of immersion and response. It enables smoother projection capabilities at 60 fps and 4K H.265, which in turn enables accurate mouse-pointing and ultra-low cursor latency. It auto-frames meeting attendees, automatically tracks the speaker, and displays close-up shots.

• The AirShare option allows users to conveniently ‘cast’ the screen from a computer or tablet or any other device, without needing to use cables and press function buttons or key combinations. In return, IdeaHub itself can connect to the corporate network to make use of.
• IdeaHub allows users to create and join meetings on smartphones. By scanning a QR code, the room system can easily be activated. And from the individual smartphone both the conference can be joined as well as all of its settings be controlled.
• The integrated Huawei AppGallery comes with popular Apps pre-installed. The customizable homepage includes a private application portal and a convenient web app distribution possibility.
• Open software and hardware for industry applications includes Windows platform extension, OPS, and optional extension module for Windows. The open software development kit allows third parties to use the hardware and audiovisual capabilities.
• Cloud meeting supports and provides high network adaptability plus 30% PLC for video, and 80% PLC for audio.
• Ultra-low writing latency gives a smooth and intuitive writing experience that can easily be shared and sent to email addresses with one tap.

Incorporating an interactive whiteboard, UHD projection, video conferencing and the open office AppGallery, IdeaHub delivers a new option for smart offices in meeting rooms, open offices, executive boardrooms, home offices, and many other scenarios where (instant) information-sharing across teams and departments is required.

One major factor that particularly impresses me is that it brings far more real-time immersive functionality than I’ve seen before. It enables a whole new level of collaborative possibilities that we need now more than ever, like no delays when writing, accuracy, and functions like contract-signing.

Protecting the Bottom Line

As enterprises and governments increasingly realize that face-to-face and physical meetings can be both a time and financial burden that lower productivity and bottom lines, virtual solutions are an increasingly attractive proposition.  This I believe was happening anyway – the pandemic and the “isolate” aspect it’s culminated in have simply accelerated this.

Post-pandemic, we’re likely to see an increase in virtual meetings and conferences where geography and location are no longer barriers and collaboration can occur in real-time, without the latency issues and set up complexity that’s common now. And we need the tools to make that a reality.

In my next post, I’ll explore the changing face of health and education and what IdeaHub can bring to these areas.

In the meantime, click the link to read more about the Huawei IdeahHub.

Disclaimer: Any views and/or opinions expressed in this post by individual authors or contributors are their personal views and/or opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of Huawei Technologies.