Earlier this summer, UHD's IT Department was recognized as one of 12 finalists for the 2012 AMX Innovation Awards. UHD was selected out of hundreds of competing entries from around the world for using innovative applications for automation and control systems in a learning environment.

On Wednesday, Aug. 29, AMX delivered the prize equipment to UHD, pictured below.

In the contest, UHD was challenged to provide a proactive approach to address technical issues that contributed to classroom interruptions which increased learning downtime and need for support personnel. According to Steve Cachia, manager of video network services at UHD, the team's use of AMX Resource Management Suite, control and automation, provides them with a pro-active approach to addressing the issues. They are instantly informed anytime a classroom is experiencing a technology issues via pages and emails and generally before students or instructors know there is a problem.

"Ultimately, the investment in AMX has paid off. It allows us to actively monitor the control network. Besides addressing the technical issues, we now know when intrusions (security) issues occur in these rooms, we can do inventory quickly and we can instantly assist customers remotely," Cachia said.

From left: Hossein Shahrokhi, UHD Associate Vice President for Information Technology; Steve Cachia, UHD Manager of Video Network Operations; Kevin Diltz, AMX Regional Sales Manager; and Blake Jackson, AMX Central Region Vice President.