Sahara Presentation Systems again gathered its partners and guests to the Hanbury Manor Hotel for what is traditionally one of the highlights of the AV year. Sahara subsidiary Clevertouch could justifiably claim to have presented one of the stars of the show, with its Pro Series Capacitive Touch collaboration device, but there was also plenty of interest from Sahara Distribution partners.
The agenda at this year’s Sahara Showcase Events was pretty much evenly divided between the education and corporate sectors – much more, perhaps, than in previous years when Sahara was best known for its prowess in education. The advent of the Clevertouch Pro Series, and its capacitive variant, has put the Clevertouch brand in the vanguard of corporate collaboration.
Bur it is the distribution arm of Sahara that is able to supply solutions as varied as LFD, projection, video wall, and presentation software as well as interactive touchscreen innovations. The refocus on distribution sees Sahara able to supply solutions into an enterprise-wide corporate environment, school or college.
Fortunately, Sahara has taken its loyal band of resellers and integrators forward with it in its endeavours to drive into new markets. The commitment ad enthusiasm of this group as evident at Hanbury Manor, the Sahara Showcase venue. Sahara is known for the relationships it builds with its channel partners on both the Clevertouch and Sahara Distributions side of the business. Sahara Distribution’s growing band of vendor partners (currently 18 good brands) is further proof of the company’s ability to build and maintain relationships – particularly since a number of brands are competitors with each other and even Sahara’s house brands.
There were no signs of inter-brand tensions at Hanbury Manor – far from it, in fact, with the positive opinions about the event being unanimous. While Sahara Showcase is clearly designed as a networking event, many of those present felt that the balance between exhibition and presentations was right and genuinely informative.
Guest speakers were invited because of their unique perspective and direct experience of developing or installing technology within either a corporate or education environment. They included the excellent Dr. Edward Tse, the new Director of Education Strategy at NUITEQ, who examined at the three key themes of storytelling, simultaneous personalised learning and safety, and how they can be applied to technology in the classroom.
Adam Harvey, AV and Digital Media Development Manager at the University of Hertfordshire, talked about the techniques his team used to remove the fear of new technology from the teaching experience, following the installation of the latest collaborative technology in the university’s new science building. Finally, a word of congratulation to Chris Southern of Clevertouch whose presentation of the Pro Series, including the new Capacitive Model, was both informative and entertaining.
Overall, the effort and thought applied to the event, and the seminar programme in particular, paid dividends in the goodwill generated towards Sahara.
