Konica Minolta announced a joint entry in IDC’s first annual Future Enterprise Best in Future of Work North America Awards with its IT Services Division All Covered and Southwest Tennessee Community College (SWTCC) has been named a finalist. The entry, SWTCC’s Digital Twin Distance Teaching/Learning Platform, presented an initiative to retain and grow its student body.
IDC’s Best in Future of Work North America Awards recognize that globally, organizations are experiencing seismic changes in where and how they work: how technology is changing work culture, digital and physical workspaces, and the ways in which humans and machines collaborate to get work done. The new award program was designed to showcase implemented initiatives in North America that display an agile and scalable approach to work to drive new value and competitive differentiation for an organization.
All Covered and SWTCC’s Digital Twin Distance Teaching/Learning Platform was named a finalist in the category of Space, which required for “the digital work environment to be intelligent and dynamic, connected and secure, and independent of a physical place or specific time of day.” IDC looked for corporate facilities to leverage technology and intelligence to create a safe and healthy environment.
The intention of the SWTCC Digital Twin Distance Learning/Teaching Platform was to facilitate remote instruction capable of mimicking – as closely as possible – an in-person classroom experience, which would effectively enable the simultaneous, real-time instruction of students in both physical and virtual classroom environments. Since there were no off-the-shelf solutions available that could deliver on budget, SWTCC and All Covered set out to develop the brand new system. Working with multiple vendors and technology design engineers, the “Digital Twin” platform was created by integrating two large interactive touch panels for sharing teaching content and camera feeds, along with two high-quality cameras electronically “paired” to each course’s Zoom session.
“Southwest Tennessee Community College has worked very hard with All Covered and our other vendor partners to design a distance learning technology platform that will facilitate and replicate the real-time “in-class” experience for students who may be attending remotely,” said Dr. David Rosenthal, deputy chief information officer, Information Technology Services, SWTCC. “We are proud to know that the Digital Twin platform is entirely unique to Tennessee and the Midsouth, and we see the possibility of this project ultimately increasing our enrollment and adding value to the instruction provided to our students.”
“The Future of Work Awards finalists exemplify the ways in which digital transformation is not only changing where and how we work from augmented work processes to hybrid work environments that continuously evolve work culture,” said Amy Loomis research director, Future of Work at IDC. “Each submission delivered thoughtful, measurable and meaningful results and provides a practical framework for future initiatives.”
“We are thrilled that our platform and SWTCC have been recognized by such a prestigious organization,” said Judy Nguyen, national teaching & learning consultant, All Covered. “Any solution of this level requires hardware, design, installation and integration, and we are proud that All Covered’s expertise was able to help SWTCC continue classes through the pandemic,” added Jon Clemons, National Practice Manager – Education IT Services, All Covered.
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