Cisco Telepresence solutions enable students and faculty at BITS Pilani Dubai Campus to collaborate efficiently within and beyond the campus.
BITS Pilani is a premier independent Indian University that has 3 campuses in India at Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and its first overseas campus in Dubai. It employs over 700 full-time faculty and has 11,000 on-campus & 19,000 off-campus students. Accredited by NAAC with the most coveted “A” grade in University accreditation, BITS Pilani has a world-class benchmarked curriculum and the largest industry-university network.
A progressive University which moved into the 21st century with BITS Connect to provide gigabit internet, IP telephony, video conferencing, and wireless access on campus way back in 2002, BITS has leveraged technology infrastructure to bring state-of-the-art knowledge from industry and academia into the campus.
BITS Campuses across India were connected and there was a need to connect all of them including Dubai Campus tightly for pedagogic as well as administrative reasons. It was also critical to enable the alumni to easily connect with all campuses (especially Dubai).
BITS were challenged with regard to campus placements because the same company had to visit different campuses multiple times. Additionally, when alumni or a dignitary visited any one of the Indian campuses, students in the Dubai campus could not benefit from their wisdom. Guest lectures from abroad could be only facilitated across Indian campuses via video conferencing. Since these lecturers did not have time to repeat the same lecture four times, Dubai Campus students were deprived of knowledge transfer in real-time.
Faculty shortage in higher degree courses/electives was a challenge across campuses because the need for specialized electives varied in extent across different campuses, making it very difficult to launch electives on all four campuses. To overcome these issues, BITS along with BITSAA, its alumni community, launched the BITS Connect 2.0, which is a multi-million dollar project that leverages Cisco’s collaboration portfolio to enhance teacher-student-alumni interaction across all its campuses.
The next-generation learning experiences for its students across geographies
BITS Pilani Dubai Campus began to evaluate the need for an integrated solution that could facilitate the next-generation learning experiences for its students across geographies. BITS required a solution that would seamlessly integrate and serve as an extension to BITS’ existing Cisco Video collaboration infrastructure in India. A very detailed evaluation process was undertaken with many vendors including Cisco for the BITS Pilani Dubai Campus project.
Since Cisco’s Immersive Telepresence, High-definition Video Conferencing, and Cisco’s Webex technologies were already in use across BITS Pilani India Campuses, the choice was made to continue with Cisco. The primary reason for choosing Cisco was the breadth of its offerings, in addition to the fact that the solutions are interoperable and scalable. Even though the project investigation began in Sept 2013, the implementation in Dubai was delayed due to regulatory constraints.
In addition, BITS Pilani faced challenges in terms of MPLS Connectivity required to interconnect its Dubai Campus to its India Network. Other than high connectivity costs, the main concern was the guarantee of consistent bandwidth and 99.99% availability to BITS Dubai Campus at all times to ensure a Great Immersive Video Experience.
Subtitle custom to the case study solution
Black Box (Formerly Fujisoft Technology) & LLC together with its Partner Custom Connect was able to guarantee high availability whilst keeping bandwidth costs low. Black Box was awarded the project in November 2015 and the project was delivered in Jan 2016 well before the April 2016 timeframe. The scope of work included;
Redesigning the designated Immersive Telepresence Room, to accommodate the installation of Cisco’s Flagship Model IX5200, 18 Seater Immersive Telepresence System. The redesigning of the room included the changes to lighting, Air Conditioning, Acoustic Correction and overall aesthetics of the room to enhance the immersive telepresence experience.
Redesign of an auditorium to facilitate a world class-learning centre to accommodate up to 160 students, with custom-built furniture, Acoustics, Lighting, Air Conditioning, Audio Visual and Presentation Capabilities, whilst deploying the Cisco Telepresence Integrator C90 Solution with 3 Precision HD Cameras.
In addition, Black Box also deployed a Cisco SX10 Small Meeting Room Telepresence unit for the BITS Dubai Campus Interview room and an EX90 Personal Endpoint in the Campus Director's Office.
Cisco Telepresence solutions enable students and faculty at BITS Pilani Dubai Campus to collaborate efficiently within and beyond the campus
SARAVANA KUMAR – HEAD OF IT DUBAI CAMPUS.
“We needed a partner that we felt we could work with; individuals who would be partners as opposed to a traditional client/supplier relationship. Black Box’s commitment to delivering a world-class facility is evident in its work from Design to Delivery. Black Box delivered on all counts.” Prof- Madiajagan “We benefit greatly from the fact that Black Box (Formerly Fujisoft Technology) and Cisco work together as such a great team. Their dedication and the way they battle through things alongside us ensure we will continue our long-term partnership.”
Black Box’s global team of solutions architects can help you find the CX that resonates with your customers and energizes your brand. Whether we’re working with you to design agent desktops that handle all inbound channels, assuring digital channels are consistent and easy to use or implementing the right amount of outbound channels and brand awareness that aligns with your core values, Black Box is ready to support and help you grow on your CX journey.
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Industry: Education,
Products: Networking,
