Just a month before its two-year anniversary, the Zoom Learning Center has attracted 2 million registered users 🎉

This eclectic group of customers hail from nearly every country around the globe, use a range of Zoom products, and have job titles like volunteer, engineer, and everything in between. What do they have in common? They have all found something they were looking for in the Zoom Learning Center. Come find out what! 📚

“There would be no Ready Set Push without Zoom,” Kiana Ayers said. 

Through her nonprofit, Ready Set Push, she runs virtual prenatal classes and support groups while still working as a registered nurse on the side. “The ease of the Zoom platform and the way that I can access it, no matter where I am, has made it possible to continue to keep this sustainable.”

To Kiana, continuing her work is literally a matter of life and death.   

As an obstetrics nurse at a large Medicaid Company, she saw firsthand the challenges low-income Black families faced with prenatal care: If they couldn’t afford a class, or had no access to one in their neighborhood, their risk of preterm labor increased – and with it, infant and maternal mortality. 

Without preparation and support, these families faced an uncertain, even terrifying, experience in the healthcare system. “[Mothers] were afraid to go to the hospital, because they were afraid they were gonna die,” Kiana said. 

Kiana’s not the only one who has noticed this problem. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the United States — 69.9 per 100,000 live births for 2021, almost three times the rate for white women. Georgia, the state in which Kiana lives, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country. Several factors may explain why, including poverty, a large rural population, and the disparities Black Americans face in the healthcare system. 

Kiana has seen both the fear that mothers feel and the hunger they have for information. They want to learn how to navigate pregnancy and childbirth, but childbirth education is either non-existent or cost-prohibitive. 

With Ready Set Push, Kiana aims to change that.

Read the full article by Nicole Gray (Product Program Manager at Zoom) 👉 https://blog.zoom.us/zoom-cares-amplifying-social-impact-with-the-power-of-zoom/ 

Just thought I'd post a great video I came across today illustrating the difference between optical and digital zoom in conferencing cameras. Please think about this when designing Zoom Rooms!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-8oGqcu330 (please be sure to watch in 1080)

Those of you who have been in the game for more than a few years know all of this already, but this simple comparison is a great primer for IT/facilities teams that have fallen into the roles of traditional AV/UC teams to understand why the digital-zoom cameras being touted as 'revolutionary' often fall short in the image department, despite inflated-resolution specs.

While digital-zoom can be a more scalable solution, my team and I personally feel that any space larger than a small/huddle room needs a true optical-zoom camera in order to compete with the quality of a standard MacBookPro webcam. Grainy video from conference rooms is a terrible look, and it's unfortunate that products costing thousands of dollars with 'AI digital zoom' do not have the image-quality of an inexpensive PTZ camera with optical components.

Go optical, and let your hardware vendors know that conferences should look GOOD!

Happy Halloweeeeeeeen 💜

It's that time of the year when we embrace our inner witches and ghouls, and I want to see all your spooktacular Zoom backgrounds and costumes for this year's Halloween 🧙‍🧛‍🦇

Drop a spooky selfie in the replies below 👇

(If you dare 😈)

Who doesn't love themed dress-up days at school?! 👕🏫

Schools around the country have been celebrating "Zoom Day"! (Psst, drop any pictures if you have any 😎)

In line with that, The Zoom Learning Center recently refreshed its free Zoom for Education catalog 💙

Check it out today 👉 https://learning.zoom.us/learn