FSMA

The FSMA's status is that of an autonomous public institution. This means that it was established by law and that it carries out independently the tasks in the general interest entrusted to it by Parliament. The FSMA, alongside the National Bank of Belgium (NBB), supervises the Belgian financial sector. Besides, the FSMA has the legal task to contribute to improving financial education. To that end, it launched in 2013 a programme for financial education called Wikifin. As part of that programme, it also took the initiative to create the Wikifin Lab.

The Wikifin Lab

The Wikifin Lab is a digital and interactive experience centre for financial education where students experiment with different financial situations drawn from daily life. During a 2.45-hour journey students sometimes play in groups or individually. A facilitator accompanies each group and launches group discussions to sharpen the critical sense and further develop skills. The Wikifin Lab has been developed in collaboration with teachers, educationalists and academics specialized in behavioural economics and gaming. The Wikifin Lab is the perfect place to experiment with aspects of the school curriculum..

Auditorium

The Wikifin Lab trajectory comes to an end in the auditorium with the projection of a film. The purpose is, while watching the film, to immerse the visitor in young people's experiences with money matters. Three high-end 4K laser projectors by Epson provide a unique image experience in this beautiful dome. Epson's EB-L1100U is a WUXGA projector with 6.000 ANSI lumens offering long-life laser projection for large venues and delivering rich, vivid colours thanks to its 3LCD technology. This type is equipped with advanced functions such as image stacking, image blending, 4K image enhancement, etc. The L1100U is delivered with a motorised lens that can be exchanged by one of the 8 available lenses so that the beamer can be used an almost any situation. This allows you to remotely adjust the focus, zoom and image position.

The most important source to project content into the room is a personal computer with 3 display outputs. The Dolby Surround encoding is also transmitted from this personal computer. Furthermore classic presentations are possible with the familiar Barco Clickshare system, in this case a CSE-200 unit. Two HDMI plug-ins were also installed in the wall and the lectern.

As a presenter, you like to walk around in an auditorium with plenty of space and this is why we paid further attention to the audio section. This liberty is created through various wireless Shure microphones. A corresponding charging station ensures operational reliability.

Audio processing and sound amplification are realized by BOSE and Biamp devices. Loudspeakers (7x Bose RoomMatch RMU105 + 1x Bose Panaray subwoofer) and a surround amplifier (Bose PowerMatch PM8250 amplifier - 8x250 watts) ensure an impressive sound spectrum. The processing takes place in the Biamp Tesira (Dante AEC).

When it comes to control and switching, we opted, together with FSMA, for the Crestron NVX technology. The NVX-series belongs to the latest generation of ‘digital media’ products and offers a secure transmission of 4K60fps-, 4:4:4- and HDR-video over standard 1Gb Ethernet. It leverages industry standard 802.1x authentication, Active Directory credential management, and the SSH network protocol to ensure network security at the product level. The NVX series provides an infinitely scalable software-defined matrix. The system can be connected to all kinds of endpoints. For the touch panel (Crestron TSW-760) we created a tailor-made layout in accordance with the FSMA's corporate identity.

Meeting rooms

The FSMA belongs to the large club of Microsoft Teams users. As a result, in 2020, the institution made an accelerated transition from Skype for Business to Teams. All hardware in the rooms now complies with the MTR (Microsoft Teams Rooms) standards. The largest meeting room focuses on audioconference but will be equipped with cameras in the future. This room can also be divided into smaller zones in which all AV equipment adapts according to the presets or room layout. In the medium-sized and small rooms we always work with a Samsung 4K display, a Canton soundbar, a Lumens 4K PTZ camera, the Barco Clickshare presentation system and a Biamp Devio. As you can see, the FSMA is located in a beautiful authentic building where you do not just drill holes where you want to. Despite this hurdle, we still managed to deliver everything neatly.

We wish the FSMA and the Wikifin Lab team a warm and successful 2021.