PRESS RELEASE: MATRIX FURTHER EXPANDS WITH NEW OFFICE IN LEEDS
Matrix announces the opening of a new and much larger office in Pavilion Business Park, Leeds. The move increases the size of the office by more than 6 times.
There has been a significant growth in activity for all sectors of the business in the North. The new office in Leeds is a result of this success and now houses the growing education team, corporate sales staff and the service team. The expansion has resulted in improved account management, a broader service offering and a larger team dedicated to serve clients in Leeds and surrounding areas.
The team can be contacted at the new office on 0845 2626 500.
Office address:Unit 3 Pavilion Business Park
Royds Hall Road
Leeds
West Yorkshire
LS12 6AJ
Tel: 08452626500
Fax: 08452626501
PRESS RELEASE: THREE NEW COMPANIES EXTEND AV GLOBAL ALLIANCE TO 24 MEMBERS
Audio Visual Machines (AVM) extends the AV Global Alliance to 24 members by welcoming Avitec (Turkey), AVITECH (Romania) and AV MEDIA (Czech Republic). The Alliance is a partnership of leading audio visual and video conferencing systems integrators (AVSI) from different countries around the world, and provides mutual support for their international clients.
AV Global Alliance partners operate in over 160 cities in 29 countries around the globe and have a combined turnover in excess of $2.5bn. The Alliance offers unrivalled services to its multinational customers who know that a leading, specialist organisation will be able to design, install and maintain their audio visual systems almost anywhere in the world.
Sandy MacPherson (Chairman of AVM) said: “We are proud to have the leading AVSIs from Turkey, the Czech Republic and Romania join our club. The continued growth of the Alliance follows the patterns of demand for video conferencing from multinationals throughout the world.”
AVM will continue to develop the AV Global Alliance by adding partners who are typically the market leaders in their own territories. Partners’ details are at www.avmachines.com/global-partners.
PRESS RELEASE: CONNECT YOUR CLASSROOM WITH ANY AREA OF THE GLOBE USING VIDEO CONFERENCING
New technology can be daunting to teachers, video conferencing (VC) is often thought of as expensive and too complex to be an effective teaching tool. However, Matrix Display Systems is seeing an increased interest in VC as teachers are learning how to engage this technology and discover the benefits it can provide.
Imagine a child that can go to school for a day and experience speaking in French to a child in a classroom in France, touring a historical museum or interviewing a professional sports personality. Video conferencing technology allows us to communicate directly with other students, teachers or professionals through both sound and vision. You can exchange audio and video in real time with people who could be as far away as the other side of the world.
This evolving learning method allows people at separate locations to communicate with each other. For example connecting remote students with teachers, bringing distant experts onto the screen for interviews and allowing children to engage with students in another country to improve their language skills and knowledge of different cultures. This presents new aspects of learning which enable pupils to develop and engage.
Matrix have noticed that significantly more schools are becoming aware of this type of technology and learning how it can encourage collaboration amongst pupils and create more engaging lesson content. The reason we don’t connect with people far away in every day teaching is because of travel costs, the time it takes and the inconvenience. Video conferencing breaks down these barriers and creates interesting and enthusiastic learning where traditional teaching methods often struggle.
John Ginty, Education VC specialist at Matrix commented “The main reason for the increased sales activity experienced within Education has been influenced by the growing interest from educationalists in video conferencing. They have identified and experienced its ability to allow small groups or classes to interact with subject specialists and businesses world wide, without leaving the school.”
Teachers that are currently involved in using this technology have realised the added benefit of networking with other educational establishments to share resources and experiences. As the use of video conferencing within education increases, more schools will have an opportunity to network with each other and this benefit will grow.
Matrix will continue to help schools realise the potential of VC and encourage its integration within the school environment. This will help towards creating interactive learning environments where students can share, plan, deliver and search learning resources.
PRESS RELEASE: MATRIX TRIALS FIRST NATIONWIDE VISUALISER PILOT PROJECT
Matrix Display Systems has collaborated with Local Authorities and schools across the UK to pilot the use of visualiser technology. Three hundred schools trialed Elmo visualisers in their classrooms for a ten week period to see how it aided teaching primary and secondary school children in a range of subjects.
A visualiser is a digital presentation and teaching tool that connects directly to an interactive whiteboard. When something is placed onto the visualiser viewing plate it is enlarged onto the interactive whiteboard for everyone to see. It allows any content to be shown, from a pupil’s work or a 3D artefact to the various steps of a science experiment. Teachers can annotate images, zoom in and out, get different views and angles and capture still shots. This exciting visual technology helps pupils absorb and retain information.
The schools that took part in the project found they could convey subject matter with greater impact and increased student participation. Teachers identified different strategies for using visualisers; demonstrations could be made to the whole class without them crowding round the subject, planning time was reduced as there was less need to scan books and other resources. The visualiser was particularly good at showing pupils how to use tools and techniques that are difficult to demonstrate to a group, such as the use of a protractor in a maths class or shading techniques in art class.
“It’s really good for showing and annotating pupils work to the rest of the class and for live marking pupils work. I love it, the children do too” says Mr Lewis Smith at George Watson College.
The visualiser pilot project has successfully allowed schools to explore new ways of complimenting existing teaching practices. The information that was gathered will be shared amongst other teachers to enhance lesson planning. Matrix has also been able to maintain a record of any management or technical issues arising, to support schools investing in visualisers in the future.
28th JAN 2009 – KINGSCLERE C.E PRIMARY SCHOOLS WINS AND ELMO L1n VISUALISER FROM MATRIX AT THE BETT SHOW!
On 28th January Matrix Display Systems delivered the FREE Elmo L1n Visualiser to the winner of our competition, Mr Duncan Wood, who is the Headteacher of Kingsclere C.E Primary School.Kingsclere C.E Primary School entered our competition at BETT 09 where they had a chance to win an Elmo L1n Visualiser! Mr Wood was please to recieve the Elmo L1n. Matrix Display Systems hope that Kingsclere is finding the Visualiser a very benificial tool for the classroom.
6th JAN 2009 – MATRIX JOINS THE NAACE COMMUNITY AS A SPONSORING PARTNER
NAACE is the National Association of Advisors for Computers in Education. They are the professional association for those concerned with advancing education through the appropriate use of information and communications techology (ICT). Members, sponsoring partners and staff all share a passion for embedding the effective use of ICT into teaching, learning and school management.
Matrix are proud to be NAACE's most recent sponsoring partner and show our commitment to their objectives. Matrix strongly believe that Education can be substantially advanced through the appropriate use of ICT, across the whole curriculum. Our partnership with NAACE confirms that we are supportive and passionate about this notion.
Being a sponsor will give us access to a whole new dimension of information and knowledge sharing around the primary aims of the effective use of IT into teaching, learning and school management. It provides a direct channel to members for example, attendance at the Annual Strategic Conference. We hope our sponsorship support will increase the ability of NAACE to change government policy for the better and help progress and influence procedures.
19th JAN 2009 – A FANTASTIC BETT SHOW 2009 FOR MATRIX
Matrix had a great week at the BETT Show and we are pleased we got to meet so many of you face to face. The team hope that you found everything you were looking for and got all the information you need for a great 2009! We are now busy planning for the Education show and NAACE, we hope to seee you there!
15th OCT 08 – OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF ‘THE MATRIX’ WYCOMBE WONDERERS STUDY SUPPORT CENTRE
Matrix are the official sponsor ofthe Learning Centre at Wycombe Wanderers Football Club. The Centre has been initially funded by 'Playing for Success' which is an Out of School Hours, Study Support initiative based within sports clubs' grounds and sporting venues. They use the environment and medium of sport as motivational and curriculum tools.
The Centre will focus on raising standards of literacy, numeracy and ICT amounts under-achieving Key Stage 2 and 3 pupils (ages 9-14) and has been named 'The Matrix Study Support Centre'. We attended the launch and showed our support within Buckinghamshire County Council.
28th SEPT 08 – AVM JOINS SUNDAY TIMES MICROSOFT TECH TRACK
Audio Visual Machines (“AVM”) has joined the ranks of Britain’s fastest-growing private tech companies. The Sunday Times Microsoft Tech Track 100 league table measures Britain’s top 100 private companies that have demonstrated the fastest growth over a three year period. AVM was placed 37th on the table based upon last year’s results.
AVM has profitably grown to a £40m turnover company with a staff of 250 in 7 offices around the UK
Edward Cook, CEO said: “We are thrilled to have our achievements recognised. This is a testament to the efforts of all our staff, both old and new, who have worked hard to build AVM and to integrate our acquisitions so successfully. The scale of our business now allows us to provide the best possible services to our customers and to take the leadership position in one of the UK’s most exciting and dynamic industries.”
JULY 08 – AVM ACQUIRES MATRIX DISPLAY SYSTEMS
Audio Visual Machines Ltd (“AVM”) – an integrator of audio visual and video conferencing systems – has announced the acquisition of Matrix Display Systems Ltd (“Matrix”) in an all cash deal.
With this acquisition, the combined AVM Group is now the largest audio visual systems integrator (AVSI) in the UK, with a turnover of £45million. The company now has 250 employees and its coverage across the UK has doubled in size, with offices in London & the South-East, Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham and Scotland. AVM has over 700 clients around the world including BP, BT, eBay, Sainsbury’s and Virgin.
With a current turnover of £23million, Matrix is the leading provider of audio visual services to the UK education sector. Matrix also has a significant client base in corporate and public organisat
ions, and is a main supplier of AVSI services to the Ministry of Defence.
Backed by Octopus Private Equity and HSBC, AVM has pursued an aggressive growth strategy, with Matrix being the company’s sixth acquisition in the last three years.
Edward Cook, CEO of AVM, said,
We are delighted to bring Matrix and its staff into the AVM Group. Matrix provides us with a wealth of experience and a sizeable customer base. By combining this with AVM’s already impressive client portfolio, we have created the UK’s largest provider of AV and video conferencing services. This enables us not only to improve and broaden the services we offer our customers, but to take a leadership position in one of the UK’s most exciting and dynamic industries.”
“In companies around the world, the boardroom is being transformed into a multimedia communications hub that reflects the way in which business is conducted now. In less than ten years, we have gone from flipcharts and overhead projectors to large-scale, fully interactive plasma screens with professional acoustic design. The advent of high speed broadband connectivity has also made video conferencing a realistic option whereas before it was cost-prohibitive and cumbersome. As a key green technology, we expect to see rapid growth in this market over the next few years.”
Sandy MacPherson, Chairman of AVM, said, “This latest deal firmly establishes us as the dominant player in the UK’s fast growing AVSI market. As both private and public sector organisations demand more sophisticated AV and video conferencing solutions, we are seeing increasing consolidation within the UK industry – this development is fully in line with our strategy to continue to expand via acquisition. With our extensive international partnership programme, we are also in a great position to grow our global customer base.”
MATRIX IS AWARDED AN ENVIRONMENTAL CERTIFICATE
Matrix Display Systems have recently been awarded the newly revised BS EN ISO 14001:2004. ISO 14001 is the internationally recognised standard for the environmental management of businesses. The certificate specifies the requirements for an environmental management system (EMS), providing us with a framework for our organization to control the environmental impacts of activities, products and services, and to continually improve the companies environmental performance. These include the use of natural resources, handling and treatment of waste and energy consumption.
