When it comes to major sports events as the Olympic Games it´s not only the athletes who have to face the challenge. IT has become extremely important to manage the Games, deliver exact results and a perfect experience for the audience. At Austria’s biggest gathering of IT professionals, the Confare CIO SUMMIT, the speech of Angels Martin Munoz, General Manager for Olympic Games at the Major Events unit of Atos, gives the audience a glimpse to how cloud and cutting-edge technology change the way sport events are held and anticipated. For the blog we asked her about the major challenges and technological trends.
A major sports event involves a great amount of technology – how did the management of Olympia change over the last decade?
The world of IT is evolving very quickly. With the emergent and innovative technologies arising, we shift the delivery model from build each time to build once and use continuously. This helps to be more productive and reduce both costs and environmental impact. And we can’t forget that it takes 4 years to organize one single Olympiad, so during this period there are also many changes that need to be managed.
What are the most critical aspects of the used Information Technology?
Data is gold. There are plenty of critical aspects – not only reliability and availability, but also privacy and security for all the personal data that we manage, or response time for results. And data sharing is also key – we provide an environment for all actors to work together organizing the Olympic Games.
What kinds of technologies were used?
Atos has once more proven to be innovative as PyeongChang 2018 was the first Olympiad having all its critical IT applications hosted in the cloud.
What possibilities do cloud services offer for the management of such an event?
It offers an even better preparation by giving access to all different stakeholders wherever they are located around the world. Additionally, it is bringing a more cost-efficient model by sharing a ready to use infrastructure between different Games editions (Winter/Summer), with a more sustainable model that is reducing the carbon footprint.
What further development do you expect? How will digitization change sport events in the future?
New technologies such as 5G, AI, quantum computing or holograms are becomming more and more a reality. IT or technologies always had an impact on sport. They helped developing new and more efficient equipment for instance with the swimming suits, or the goal line technology in football. Federations are adopting the technologies at their own pace, and we, Atos, will propose or integrate these new solutions enabling the Olympic Games to grow and develop as we always have.
How can your customers profit from the experiences made at the Games?
Adoption of new edge technologies and new environments (culture, place, teams) with the necessity of delivering a perfect service each time made us over the time: organized, flexible, exacting and experienced. If we can digitally transform the Olympic Games, the biggest event on earth in a given time and budget, we are able to transform your company anywhere in the world.
