InfoComm 2026 brought together some of the brightest minds in the audiovisual industry, and for Jamison Vandenberg, Academic Technology Specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, the event was as much about people as it was about technology.
Vandenberg, who has been immersed in AV since the age of twelve, now oversees in-house AV integrations at UW-Green Bay. At InfoComm 2026, he co-presented a session titled AV Networking 101, aimed at helping AV professionals communicate more effectively with their networking teams.
“AV over IP, it’s already here, it’s not the future,” Vandenberg told UC Today. “We need to find better ways to communicate with our networking teams.” The session covered foundational networking concepts including multicast, broadcast, IGMP snooping, and the difference between host names and MAC addresses – knowledge that Vandenberg believes is essential for any AV professional operating in today’s IP-driven environments.
On the show floor, Vandenberg was impressed by several vendors, highlighting Epson’s Direct View LED offering, QSYS, Lightware’s Type C solutions, and Extron. However, he noted that AI dominated almost every conversation at the event – something he has mixed feelings about. While he sees value in AI as a tool for programmers, he is cautious about over-reliance. “I want AI to be like my Phillips head screwdriver,” he said.
“Something I can bounce ideas off, not something that takes over my job.”
For higher education specifically, Vandenberg pointed to budgetary constraints and state procurement processes as ongoing challenges, alongside the need to design spaces that are intuitive enough for professors to use without a touch panel.
But his biggest takeaway from InfoComm 2026 was neither a product nor a platform. It was a call to action: the AV industry needs to do more to inspire the next generation of professionals. “We need to find a way to inspire the younger generation to go into AV,” he said. “That’s what I’m going to be working towards.”
