Lyon, 6 March 2020 – The coronavirus epidemic that began in China in December is having a significant impact in France where the virus entered phase two on 28 February. While some schools have closed, companies have begun taking preventive measures and certain events have been cancelled, further defensive action and decision-making are set to step up when the virus enters, as is deemed likely, phase three, or “an actual epidemic”. Faced with this situation, the French company Glowbl is taking action to successfully meet the needs of organisations, school and universities that are being forced to urgently roll out virtual learning and online meeting tools.
Guaranteeing learning continuity
Some schools have already closed; others are preparing to do so. Thousands of students have already had their teaching interrupted abruptly. The question is whether France is ready to alleviate the upheaval by enabling students and pupils to receive training remotely using digital tools. The French EdTech network has a whole range of solutions. The association EdTech France is a network of 240 innovative companies successfully running wholly digital projects.
For example, Cyber-Classe is a school that has been providing French secondary school (collège and lycée) classes for the last two years. This entirely virtual school offers a teaching solution for young people who can no longer take part in the traditional school system. Every day, Glowbl delivers language, mathematics and philosophy classes between teachers and pupils in real time, in a highly realistic environment: classrooms are customised, intuitive and focused on human interaction.
Improving telecommuting
Article L1222-11 of the French Labour Law states that, “In the case of exceptional circumstances, particularly when faced with the threat of an epidemic, or in the case of force majeure, implementation of telecommuting may be considered as a necessary modification of a person’s workstation to ensure continuity of a company’s business and guarantee employee protection”.
French Minister of Labour, Muriel Pénicaud, encourages this preventive solution in companies. She has called for “adapting working conditions, through telecommuting or sick leave”. For conditions to be optimal, they must be adapted to employees’ needs. They must be able to interact in videoconferences while employing a wide range of content. They need to set up work meetings, brainstorm with their colleagues and continue to meet with customers, all while maintaining their daily habits.
The urgent nature of the situation calls for simple solutions and Glowbl, which is accessed directly via your browser, has set up a process to roll out registered licences. This will enable companies to provide successive waves of employees with their own virtual rooms, which will be their second office during the high-risk period.
Offering an alternative when face-to-face events have to be cancelled
As more and more key events are cancelled, certain announcements resonate particularly loudly: the Mobile World Congress, for example, or the AWS Summit in Paris, which will be replaced by a large-scale virtual event.
Other scheduled events, while not in the public eye, are also at risk: training courses delivered by training organisations, business conferences, etc.
Through its involvement with the Big Data Paris show, Glowbl has already trialled virtual events by offering interactive webinars between exhibitors and their audience. The training organisation Comundi began transitioning a few months ago when it started offering digitalised training sessions to expand its offer. Virtual classrooms, which are accessible without installing any software, can be rolled out on a large scale, the direct-access URL link replacing the training centre’s address.
About GlowblGlowbl is a videoconferencing platform to collaborate efficiently in real time in customized virtual spaces. Through its unique patented interface, Glowbl is putting the human behavior back on stage with the opportunity to reproduce real life interactions during online meetings, virtual classes, large audience communications and customer experience. |
To find out more
Bérengère Pery – press@glowbl.com