Mohammad Usman Tahir

Sixty-eight courtrooms, 41 meeting rooms, an auditorium and more than 100 racks made Kuwait’s Palace of Justice a defining project for Mohammad Usman Tahir. Working for Hydrotek Engineering, he led on-site execution of the AV, public-address, digital signage and IPTV systems on the approximately USD 12 million (€11 million) project.

Post-Covid labour shortages made delivery especially difficult. With only four or five experienced AV technicians available for a team that needed around 20 people, Tahir introduced fortnightly practical training, paired less-experienced staff with experienced technicians and used approved mock-ups, repeated work sequences and checklists to reduce errors. He also programmed around 50 camera-tracking scenarios for courtrooms where proceedings could later be used as evidence.

Now at aDawliah Electronics, his work has broadened into design, presales and client consultation. Over the past year, he has helped deliver ten Microsoft Teams Rooms for five clients, including integrating Maxhub MTR with an existing Extron control system so users could operate conferencing and room functions from a single interface.

Tahir argues that AV should become more requirements-driven, with user needs defined before equipment is selected and finished systems verified against agreed performance criteria.

Outside work, he has rated 1,000 non-native-language films on IMDb, primarily in English, French and Korean. He still regularly recommends films to friends and former university classmates.