Hello and welcome, everyone. Your host today, Tyler Kern, and today we are taking a look at the State of the Union for Front Row with their President, Jens Holstebro Jens. Thank you so much for joining me today. And you too. Absolutely. Well, yes, it's clearly been a hectic year. It's been a crazy twenty twenty. Schools were not in session for the latter half of the spring semester and the fall semester is rapidly coming upon us. So how is Front Row weathered the storm so far? Yeah. It's been pretty hectic. No doubt, right? You know, obviously, we were taken by surprise as the rest of the planet. Back in March, and and did experience a complete shutdown for a couple of months and, you know, standing on the sidelines, probably with with, you know, everybody, you know, operating a business, but especially in K-twelve being pretty concerned about essentially what this would mean. Short, as well as long term. But I have to say that at this point, you know, we're kind of one hundred and eighty degrees because we're we're the concern has kind of migrated into becoming more concerned about our ability to fulfill orders more so than having business at all, because it turns out that we have some solutions that are in in tremendous demand by the schools right now. So you know, a little bit of survivor's guilt, but at the end of today, I think that that that we just feel so fortunate that we're able to stay relevant even during Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, how do you see federal safety guidelines for the upcoming academic school year impacting the classroom technology market? How do you see that all shaking out? You know, it's still sort of a moving target, right, in terms of schools interpretation of those and how they're going to go about, you know, trying to accommodate as much as they possibly can, right? So I think as we will see across the country, you know, that interpretation is gonna drive the kind of technologies that the schools are going to be folk pushing on. It's a it's a narrow spectrum that that will only leave few number of providers relevant right now just because it's just so, so urgent for the schools to be able to reopen in whatever, you know, stage that they decide, that that drives most of their their decisions. So I think that that will certainly shape a more narrow spectrum of providers in terms of the uptake marketplace. No doubt. So one of the the interesting aspects of this is that different municipalities in different school districts and different states are all handling the pandemic differently and are all approaching the upcoming school year in a different manner with different regulations. How is that impacting what front row is working on and the ed tech industry as a whole. I think again, you know, the the fact that there's regional differences across the country, you know, during and and doing a pandemic and and and, you know, not during a pandemic is such a sort of the way our marketplace works. That's not really that different from any day or year that we are in business So I think the industry will do what it always does, which is is, you know, meet the customers where they wanna be met in terms of, you know, their requirements, and then they will adapt to what what, you know, the district, the school, the municipality is looking for. And, you know, that's just sort of like the nature of the game, really, right, that that, you know, it's like a marriage, true, thick and thin. You you you you do what the the counterpart is looking for. When times are tough. So, you know, right now, you're clearly seeing that companies like ours who's been in industry for, you know, five decades can leverage the dialogue that we have with our, you know, long standing customers to figure out quickly and and very agile what's needed, and then accommodate that as fast as we can. I think that the bigger piece on regional differences is probably going to be more on, you know, reopening schedules, you know, what what What type or when do school years re engage with the community and how is going to be driving urgencies as well. Right? So in Texas, you know, they will open schools differently than they will in Connecticut. Instance, and and that will drive, you know, priorities and emergencies for sure on both sides of the fence. Absolutely. Now one of the interesting aspects of this upcoming school year is going to be whether or not students are in classrooms en masse whether they're meeting in person or whether meeting virtually. It's certainly gonna be interesting and there's gonna be probably a new normal that's been laid out by school districts just as far as where students are and how they're going to be learning, but I was wondering if you could share a success story about how front row and other tech companies maybe have risen to really meet this challenge, to help students, to help teachers, to help educators. Do you have a particular example that you can really speak to that shows what front front row is capable of. Absolutely. Yeah. So, you know, as you pointed out, right, you know, there's a lot of districts that I and with this sort of hybrid model, you know, where they're going to be able to facilitate having in class learning, but in parallel also actually be able to communicate with students to, you know, for various reasons, decides not to be in a classroom, under the constraints of of of, you know, the pandemic. And and that creates a technology need for the the the educator to be able to, you know, on one hand, sort of service the kids in classroom, and and provide, you know, as normal as possible a a learning environment. And then at the same time, being able to take that message and and and transmitted, you know, over a distance to kids learning from home. And the front road technology, because kind of, you know, put an AV platform into the classroom that starts with a microphone around the teacher's neck is a good starting point for that. So I I would say the most relevant example on how we've been able to see that sort of optimal convergence is actually down in your home state. Texas, you know, Dr. Martinez at the Clint Unified out in El Paso was already very visionary in terms of the type of AV platform that he wanted in all their classrooms, and we were in the midst of deploying a very sophisticated AV platform for his classroom that included cameras and microphones, you know, all your amplification, you know, a very wide spectrum of stuff that was obviously aimed at pre pandemic requirements. And when this new normal came in, you know, we quickly went back and talked to the district, that right now, they're actually repurposing the the the the product to be able to connect to tools like what we're using today Zoom or Google Meet, so that they can have the AV infrastructure that we're putting in, be the gateway for them to accommodate hybrid learning right now. And then later on, you know, they can sort of, you know, turn off, turn off that switch and go back to what the product was intended for initially. Yeah. Absolutely. That that kind of flexibility, I think, is is crucial and is paramount during this time. So, yes, as we begin to wrap up today, I wanted to ask a question just with the various environments for learning being perhaps different this fall, whether it's mixed, you know, a hybrid approach, all online, you know, that sort of thing. Do you picture this having an impact on the overall quality of education for students? I mean, of course, quality of education has a lot to do with whoever is the mediator of such. You know, the teacher is going to always drive a very, very key role in terms of the quality being communicated. So now that you're adding technology between the teacher and the student, you know, you're kind of adding a third bearable that that obviously will play an impact in that. So I think it's very important because is happening so urgent that whatever technology that you're asking teaches to adapt very rapidly is simple to use, and and intuitive. Right? And I think that that's one of the other reasons why we're seeing a tremendous strong momentum with our type of technology just because, you know, it's it's it's really not changing to a a a high degree. Conduct as the educator, we're really just amplifying it. So technology adoption and a low learning curve, I think, is going to be crucial for just not having an impact to the, that the quality of education On a more philosophical level, I think it's gonna drive it, you know, at the action of new technologies. Both on the teacher level, as well as on the student level. Right? You know, the fact that we're using tools like this and we know that they're being used now across the nation for for learning as well, I I think, is going to be driving us forward a lot more rapidly than, you know, we were thinking three months ago. So that's an advantage in terms of just everybody's you know, embracement of of digital tools, which you know, I need it even after the pandemic no doubt. Jens Holsteburo. He is the president of Front Row. Thank you so much for joining us today, Jens, and talking a little bit more about This interesting time for the edtech market, what front row is doing and how you picture things moving forward. So, Jen's Holstebro, President of front row. Thank you so much for joining us today. Alright. Thank or maybe being here. And everybody, thank you so much for joining us. We'll be back soon with more content. But until then, I've been your host today Tyler Kern. Thanks for watching.
