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| The building of the high-tech Olympics |
July 13, 2004 |
By Jason Rodham
Athletes will soon gather in B.C. to compete for Olympic gold. Between then and now, though, another group of competitors is already lining up to vie for different prizes.
Staging an Olympics is a huge undertaking, requiring massive investment from the public and private sector, and the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Games are expected to create 67,000 jobs and create $3 billion in potential revenue.
These Games are also being touted as the most technologically advanced ever. According to the B.C. Auditor General, up to $276 million will be invested by the province in “technology, telecommunications and Internet” infrastructure and applications development initiatives prior to the Games. Specifically, this money will be spent to ensure a reliable broadcast feed, the accurate and timely computing and display of results, imaging services for news bureaus and software, and systems for general accounting and Games management. On top of these expenditures, millions more will be invested by the private sector for the benefit of Olympic consumers, sponsors and suppliers.
With so much money on the table, Vancouver’s high-tech firms are preparing to cash in on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
THE WIRELESS GAMES
One of the most vibrant tech clusters in Vancouver centres around wireless, said Victor Jones, president of the Advanced Systems Institute of B.C. Wireless has come to be recognized as a “centre of excellence” within the province, he said.
And mobile players may reap the biggest rewards, providing services “from reporting events and reporting on players, to providing real-time images from Whistler and from some of the other venues,”Jones said. Other wireless service opportunities include the development of products to ensure athlete security, the monitoring of competition results and the promotion of news broadcasts among “clusters” of interested parties. “In the past, the world relied on CNN and the news broadcasters to select, edit and repeat the images they select from their own footage.” By the 2010 Olympics, however, “we’re going to see a plethora of individuals — and I hesitate to say amateurs — sending text-message reports and summaries in a much more democratic manner,” Jones said.
Visitors to Vancouver/Whistler, he added, will be using relatively ubiquitous technologies to feed near-time content to their friends or family — at whatever point on the compass they might reside. This will, in turn, result in the creation of all sorts of private or semi-private groups of interest. Jones said the evolution of these news clusters may come to represent one of the great technological legacies of the Games, showcasing an entirely new model for the collection, distribution and dissemination of entertainment products such as the Olympics. “In the 2010 Games, you’re going to see everyone roaming around live online…and that represents a dramatic shift in the way we view sports events.”
Canada’s still-emerging mobile infrastructure should have matured in time to deliver full functionality to the 2010 Games, said Claudia Ng, CEO of Vancouver-based FatPort Corporation. “From the growth we’ve seen today in the entire wireless industry, I’m sure by the time 2010 comes around it will be a very natural technology for consumers.”
READY TO GO?
In fact, the next few years will see many technologies develop in time for the Games. “It’s pretty clear that because of the time horizons, there are going to be opportunities out there for a lot of technologies that are in proof-of-concept today or are proven but are used in other fields,” said Peter Orr, director of product marketing at Epic Data International. Epic has several applications and professional competencies Orr said could be re-tasked to ensure “the smooth flow of people and materials among the Olympic venues.” These applications include automated personnel identification, security door and access controls and what he refers to generally as “the tracking of people and parts.”
Although Orr, like all the other potential suppliers, sees enormous brand and revenue potential, his Montreal upbringing tempers that enthusiasm considerably. “Most Montrealers are still paying taxes on an event that happened before they were even born.”
The message from Epic is that absent a sound business plan, they are one supplier who will not be rushing to the Olympic party. First off, Orr said the date is still too far off for his firm to start making any concrete plans. He also remains cautious about wasting vital development dollars on a product that might only have a shelf life of a few weeks. “[Are Olympic-specific tools] something that is part of our business plan for 2004 and 2005? No. This is a wild card.” For small and nimble Upside Wireless, however, the investment and risk are minimal when compared to the potential payoff.
Using their infrastructure and that of five other global telecom providers, Upside makes it possible to terminate SMS messages and receive originating messages from any wireless phone on the globe. The firm can also leverage its in-house software development talents to help business customers shape raw ideas into practical SMS services. Branko Zurkovic, Upside’s CEO, said his company is looking at designing a system that could automatically send an alert to a handset anywhere on the globe, notifying the user a race just finished and then swiftly posting the results. “We could offer that exact type of service today.”
Zurkovic said Upside could also install its global SMS kiosks in strategic spots throughout Whistler or in the athlete’s village. This is especially important when serving an international crowd. “In North America we think voice and e-mail.
The rest of the world thinks SMS.” As far as Upside’s direct participation in the Olympics goes, “we may be entering some of our own business ideas and trying to profit from them directly…or just open up our infrastructure to other companies.”
While Epic Data and Upside are looking at the applications side of things, Vancouver upstart FatPort wants to build out a wireless infrastructure and dedicated hot-spots system for Olympic visitors. FatPort builds wireless access points that enable customer-service driven businesses like hotels, resorts and espresso bars to offer wireless access to patrons at speeds many times faster than a typical cellular network. “We see (ourselves) as an infrastructure provider for people to deploy all kinds of different applications,” Ng said. FatPort already has three hot spots at various locations throughout Whistler, Ng said. With the hospitality industry province-wide — and even into Alberta — preparing to support a wave of high-end wireless customers, she is clearly excited about the potential for building out the company’s footprint and showcasing its brand. Besides landing contracts with value-added hospitality businesses in Whistler, Ng said FatPort is aiming to develop wireless way-points along the Sea to Sky Highway. Running from Vancouver to Whistler, the Sea to Sky is one of the principal infrastructure development projects — and potential transportation bottlenecks — at the Games.
THE POLITICS OF PREPARATION
It sure wouldn’t be B.C. if the Olympics weren’t already knee deep in politics. With so much money up for grabs, the big fish in town — Telus Corp. — is keeping its plans secret for now. Despite being very involved in the bid process, Telus has gone silent on the subject of the Games, noting only that there was, “too much at stake” to discuss the issue further.
At least one source, however, noted the lack of response from Telus could be attributed to efforts at arch-rival Bell Canada to cut in on the Olympic action. There’s no doubt that a heightened Bell presence at the 2010 Games would pay major long-term dividends for the communications heavyweight, which is still working on making a substantial impact on the hearts and minds of Western Canadians. Whatever the motivation for the silence of Telus, Nick Tattersall, managing director of the Vancouver Enterprise Forum, has a few words of advice for any B.C. firm planning to make its mark. “If companies are planning to get involved in the Olympics, they’d better understand that it’s going to be a long hard road and they’d better pull up their bootstraps now.”
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