New Delhi-based Pro Audio solutions distribution major Sun Infonet recently organized in Bengaluru a one-day event – Symposium 2024 – that showcased its widely diverse basket of Pro Audio Solutions even as it brought together a broad fraternity of Indian AV industry to facilitate networking and map the market path into 2025.
The event featured active participation from the audio distribution major’s principals Meyer Sound and Shure, besides a few other major OEMS.
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Symposium 2024 – organized recently in Bengaluru by Sun Infonet – was one of its kind event treating the industry fraternity with hands-on experience of live demonstrations of latest technology fare in Pro Audio- essentially from its two principals Meyer Sound, and Shure.
Themed as Illuminating Ideas & Inspiring Connections, the event presented the large gathering of the evening with essentially two main offerings, besides facilitating the industry fraternity to network even as it began to bid farewell to 2024, and negotiate the transition to 2025 with promise and poise.
- Showcasing of audio solutions for a wide range of applications
- Panel discussion to explore the technology scape, and scope moving into future
The live demonstration of audio solutions included technologies such as Voice Lift, advanced delegate and conferencing systems for applications such as boardrooms, huddle rooms, training rooms, meeting rooms and auditoriums.
Attendees were taken through the live demonstrations that were put in action in different halls at the venue, including the main event hall.
The panel discussion that followed comprised five senior professionals representing five different domains of the industry- manufacturing, consulting, systems integration, and end user segment:
- Antony Lovell, Sales Director-Middle East Africa & SouthAsia), Shure
- Andrea Granata, Sales Manager, Middle East & Africa, Meyer Sound
- Selwyn Fernades, Principal Consultant, HMPL Consulting
- Sachin Hallikeri, Vice-President (Technology Solutions Engineering), Online Instruments, and
- Karthikeyan K, Global, Solutions Architect, Sap Labs India
Jayakaran B, Senior Product Manager at Sun Infonet – who moderated the discussion – initiated it all with the big question- ‘What’s the next big thing in the (AV) technology domain.’
Antony Lovel fielding the question, assertively declared, it would be artificial intelligence (AI) that will dominate the technology space in the coming years. “It was machine learning in the past, but now it’s AI,” he said.
He was, however, quick to qualify the assertion saying it may bring a massive change within the audio itself, but for the industry as a whole, it’s certainly going to play a massive role like a necessary tool to make the systems better, and more experiential.
Security would be another big thing that would occupy a major space of attention in the coming years, he observed, particularly in the enterprise space where network security is crucial for organizations.
Endorsing the view held by Antony, Andrea Granata emphasized that any technology is essentially a tool to make the systems are experiential, and this is an area that AI would play a dominant role. However, it is also important to ensure that these technology tools are accessible to the innovators to enhance the efficiency and creativity while designing systems.
Selwyn Fernandes of HMPL observed that AI will certainly play a major role in AV design segment as well assisting the designers to make their designs more effective, and in lesser time. “AI would be a major collaborative tool for the designers to make their designs more interesting.”
Having said that, the End Users would still want to have the Consultant physically onboard, rather than merely relying on technology tools like AI- maintained Karthikeyan of Sap Labs.
In terms of systems integration, AI may help to a good extent for smaller spaces, but when it comes to bigger spaces like large boardrooms, or event spaces like auditoriums and convention halls, AI doesn’t work- observed Sachin Hallakeri.
“AV has never been a simple plug-and-play solution; it’s been always a tailor-made for the given space and application,” maintained the Online Instruments’ executive. “Large space still require the regular methods of human intelligence to stich the solution suitable for the application.”
The Panel spanned across various other topics that matter the AV industry in terms of systems manufacturing, design and integration. It had some very interesting interactions with the audiences where some participants came up with crucial questions.
“Symposium 2024, is for showcasing both our competence and connections,” declared Neeraj Chandra, Director of Sun Infonet- the man behind the mission. “We had done this way back in 2019; it was a very reassuring event. However, we all know what followed next,” he said.
“The initial days of post-pandemic, we all found ourselves extremely busy in either completing the pending project commitments, or making up for the precious time we lost, as also the financials suffered,” Neeraj maintained, “we find the industry in a much more settled status now, and felt it’s time we bring back the spirit of connecting the vibes and share experiences for a better tomorrow.”
Symposium 2024 was also significant in that it attracted a large gathering that comprised some of the who’s who of Indian AV. It had Mradul Sharma and his team from 3CDN, Ashok Kumar from iHD, Vipin Verma from ConsultechPro, Chandrasekhar Naik of Tek-Innovate Consulting- all from consulting fraternity; Gagan Verma of Crestron, Rajesh Mittal of QSC and Shivanand Mahashetti of Online Instruments from manufacturing.
It did have a sizeable gathering from the systems integration community as well.
