Huawei launches IdeaHub for smart office needs in Kenya

By Li Yimeng

HUAWEI has launched the IdeaHub series of products in Kenya. The IdeaHub is a productivity tool for the smart office & learning institutions that bundles intelligent writing, High Definition (HD) video conferencing, and wireless sharing.

An IF Design Award 2021 winner, IdeaHub is designed to suit any environment effortlessly turning conference rooms, executive offices, and open areas into smart spaces. ‘HUAWEI IdeaHub Board’, emphasizes on its high efficiency and low-latency with 4K resolution display, supporting both Windows and Android OS.

With its stylish design and convenience in usage and installation, HUAWEI IdeaHub Board is targeted at medium-scale offices, SMEs, educational and health institutions in Kenya, to enhance the capabilities of business and education sectors, in line with HUAWEI’s mission to push forward digital transformation in Kenya through intelligent innovations.

Will Meng, Huawei Kenya’s CEO highlighted how the Pandemic and the Ideahub have impacted Huawei globally saying: “Let’s take Huawei as an example. We employ over 200,000 employees in more than 1,000 offices across 170 countries and regions, but like most companies, the pandemic also affected us. On our first day of transition, more than half of our employees worked from home.”

“On that day, approximately 40,000 meetings were held to ensure the continuity of work. Slowly we discovered that this shift from our traditional working mode to  embracing the digital shift helped free our employees from time and energy wasted in meeting rooms, as well as business trips to different countries, research centers, and representative offices. While the traffic of virtual office services increased six fold, our expenses reduced by 28%,” added the CEO.

Will Meng explained that the world of work and collaboration is changing: “In order to maintain productivity, users are demanding new collaboration tools while working remotely. The HUAWEI IdeaHub series that we are introducing today is designed to help people work and learn anytime, anywhere, without time and space constraints, productively and efficiently. It intelligently helps you to transform, upgrade and digitize the office or classroom”.

Screen projection and whiteboard writing are two of the most commonly used functions in both smart education and offices. Taking this into account, HUAWEI IdeaHub Board offers unique features to enhance user experience.

The dropdown bar projection function, based on the Cast+ technology, allows users to project content from a phone to the large screen without installing additional apps. Users need not worry about safety as the privacy protection function ensures personal information won’t be shared during the projection.

HUAWEI IdeaHub Board also provides other projection methods for different scenarios and needs. These include a wireless projection code, IdeaShare Key, and DLNA.

As for whiteboard writing, HUAWEI IdeaHub Board uses zero-gap bonding technology, and innovative software capabilities to deliver a smooth writing experience with an ultra-low writing latency of 35ms, this makes writing on the Board as easy as using pen and paper. Meanwhile, the intelligent text and graphic recognition and email sharing functions deliver a more efficient experience than traditional whiteboards.

Video Conferencing is now the norm during the pandemic, and IdeaHub is perfectly suited for this, being able to install any video conferencing app, coming with a high quality camera with zoom and multiple microphones that automatically zooms in and tracks the speaker.

Principal Secretary, State Department of Vocational and Technical Training (VTT), Ministry of Education Dr. Margaret Mwakima in attendance remarked on the impact the IdeaHub will have on Education in Kenya.

“Today we are here to witness a very state of the art and a very iconic technology which Huawei has been developing over the years. Technology and the Ideahub are already sweeping through classrooms as educators and developers are creating more products designed to enhance education,” said Dr. Mwakima.

“For us within the TVET sector we welcome this technology because we have already launched the open and distance e-learning policy, we have taken our trainers through online, open distance and virtual learning training but our major challenge has been what kind of technology we can use to reach out to our learners at places and distances that are well beyond the traditional cities. I would welcome the Ideahub in Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Higher Education Institutions, particularly TVET Institutions.”

Huawei IdeaHub Board is available both in 65” and 86” size with 4K resolution, both models come with dual operating systems: Windows and Android OS. The smartboard screen delivers a smooth writing experience with an ultra-low writing latency. It is also complemented with AI functions, enabling intelligent text and graphic recognition.

Li Yimeng is marketing manager Huawei East Africa, Enterprise Business Group