A Dicentis conference system from Bosch was selected by the organizers of the recent International Paralympic Committee (IPC) General Assembly and Conference which took place in Manama, Bahrain near the end of 2023. Five new nations were added to the IPC family, taking the membership to 208 countries, and a pair of international federations recognized as governing bodies for para-sports.

The event saw participation from more than 350 attendees from different National Paralympic Committees, International Federations, Regional Organizations and International Organizations of Sport for the Disabled. Smooth communication was ensured thanks to an extensive Dicentis system which comprised 201 delegate devices, including eight multimedia devices, seven discussion devices with voting and 186 discussion devices with touchscreen. The conferencing solution for the event was provided by local Bosch partner Mohammed Fakhroo & Brothers W.L.L.

Accessible voting
The Dicentis discussion device with voting was specifically chosen for the General Meeting, thanks to its accessible options for visually impaired participants. The orientation sheet as an optional accessory added clearly noticeable braille cells to help distinguish between the different voting buttons. Added to this, audible feedback from the device helped to facilitate voting – when a participant casts a vote, a beep sounds in their headphones to confirm the action.

“The Dicentis conference system has been proven to be very successful for this event as it provides options for being inclusive to people with impairments,” observed Vipin Ravindran, the Sales Manager of Mohammed Fakhroo & Brothers W.L.L. “It’s not just the delegates with hearing difficulties who benefit from using the Dicentis conference system, but also the visually impaired, which has been well received by the committee.”

Multi-language support
To further aid communication at the event, interpreter booths ensured that delegates could select between six languages to hear proceedings clearly. Ahead of the General Assembly, the IPC also hosted two days of board-level meetings in the Bahraini capital. These meetings relied on a CCS 1000 D digital discussion system with advanced digital audio processing and superior microphone and loudspeaker performance, all ensuring excellent speech intelligibility.

The conference required a large amount of customization in preparing the agenda and the synoptic view showing the voting results. This was achieved using the software from Bosch IPP Partner MVI AudioVisual Global B.V.

“There were a lot of extended requirements from the customer, which included a touch display for the president of the IPC to enable and disable microphones, voting grid showing individual country/organization’s name and their selection, a separate display for the president to show the queue and active speakers, a display of results for scrutineers which once verified was passed to the president to display on the main screen and many more,” recalled Varun Raj Khanna, Technical Manager at Mohammed Fakhroo & Brothers W.L.L. “Thanks to the advanced features of the Dicentis system and its API customization using MVI AudioVisual’s Easy Conf software, we were able to provide a state-of-the-art conference experience for this year’s general assembly.”

Bosch