The 2023 edition of the LTSMG (Learning and Teaching Spaces Managers Group) conference was the biggest yet. Held at the prestigious Loughborough University, the event saw more than 90 universities from the UK and beyond, attend the two-day event for a series of events looking at higher education AV supply and design.
The morning saw an exhibition of more than 40 manufacturers, offering a wide variety of ed tech from flatpanels, projectors, digital signage, control systems, LED and more from the likes of Biamp, Crestron, Digital Projection, LG, Q-SYS, and Clevertouch.
The afternoon panels consisted of a series of presentations, starting off with an interview with Greg Jeffreys on his varied AV career, which includes a stint as AVIXA chairman, alongside a long period heading up the AVIXA standards committee, Jeffreys is currently pioneering standards around Microsoft Teams Rooms and UX.
Later on stage was Ben Pain from the Royal College of Physicians, who was on hand to guide the audience through his work on The Spine in Liverpool (read the Inavate case study here), which was the winner of the 2023 Inavation Award for Healthcare Project of the Year.
Adam Harvey from the University of Hertfordshire discussed its recent investment in LED, which is part of a larger growing trend that is seeing the higher education market embrace the technology more than ever before (Read the Inavate article on LED in HE here).
Next up was an insight into AR and VR in HE, presented by Chris McEvoy from Keele University and Professor Allegre Hadida from Cambridge University. Keele is using currently AR for engineering teaching, VR for medical teaching and is now looking at using AV/VR and MR technology all at the same time. Prof Hadida is currently implementing a VR pilot for the MBA programme for Cambridge University Judge Business School to help them ‘get inside’ different scenarios such as walking around a manufacturing plant or track body language within a corporate/office scenario.
The event then moved onto a German-themed Ocktoberfest evening event at the Bierkeller in nearby Nottingham.
The morning event the following day was headed up by a presentation on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in HE IT/AV by Iffat Chaudry.