SMART redraws the drawing board

Dubai: Forget about chalk boards. It's the age of white boards. The way students learn has changed over the years and the development of technology has been one of the main contributors to the change Wednesday.

SMART Technologies, one of the companies participating in the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (Gitex) this year, is showcasing its latest education and business solutions.

"The key driving factor behind the adoption of the technology has been education," said Aaron Fright, Regional Director of SMART Technologies Middle East.

"We have designed the hardware and software solutions to really help the learning process" from both the teacher's and student's perspective, Fright told Gulf News yesterday.

With a whiteboard connected to a personal computer, teachers can save, share and make changes to information they have written on the board. Installed with speakers, it can also be used as a projector to show a video or play music.

While the speed of adoption has differed in various markets, Fright said that it has not been restricted to one part of the world.

"We have seen a fast adoption in parts of Australia, the UK, North America, [Canada] and parts of Europe. In the last five to six years, we have seen an increase far more rapidly here in the Middle East," he said.

However, SMART Technologies has also been leveraging its technology to cater for the corporate industry.

"We are implementing and launching new business solutions using the same touch base technology," he said.

Information sharing

The technology allows business people to conduct meetings in a "more productive and efficient" manner by sharing real time information.

Fright said that the technology can also be a way to save costs for companies because they can use the technology instead of making business trips for meetings.

This new business software allows two people to work and make changes on the same document remotely in real time.

This fully integrated solution for schools costs around $2,500 (Dh9,175), and the business solution is about $5,000, Fright said.