Welcome to the ICT Games!

If you thought that Commonwealth Games are about testing how fast, or strong,or agile, or robust each athlete is as compared to others, think again. The ICT systems that monitor the games will be as closely watched as the athletes. In fact, most athletes will play hard but still lose, but none of the ICT systems can lose out at any time during twelve days of the gamesfrom October 3 to 14 in New Delhi.

According to industry estimates, the total cost for hosting the 19th Commonwealth Games ranges from $1.6 bn to almost $2 bn. This excludes non-sports related developments like airports, roads, and other major infrastructure projects. The core cost of hosting the games makes this the most expensive Commonwealth Games so far; for comparison, the previous Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006 cost $1.2 bn.

What helped India become the games hosting nation was its offer, during the second round of voting, that India would provide $1,00,000 to each participating country along with air tickets, boarding, lodging, and transport for the games.

Government spending for the Commonwealth Games has overrun a 2003 estimate of $500 mn by more than nine-fold, according to a BusinessWeek report, India spent at least $4.6 bncompared with its December 2003 estimate of $500 mnupgrading stadiums, refurbishing roads, and building power and water utilities. It spent another $2.7 bn on a new airport terminal to welcome athletes.

The games will be the largest multi-sporting event ever held in India. True, India hosted the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982; but the events then were smaller in size, scale, cost and ICT complexity.

Singapore hosted 5,000 athletes and officials from 204 National Olympic Committees; 1,900 media representatives; 20,000 local and international volunteers; and 3,20,000 spectators. Young athletesaged between 14 and 18 yearscompeted in twenty-six kinds of sports.

The entire ICT project was handled by the French giant, Atos Origion. This was the most complex ICT project for a sporting event ever undertaken in Singapore, Atos Origin says, It included 2,000 computers; 250 computer servers; and 1,200 network devices spread across thirty-five competition and non-competition venues.

The project required 2,300 ICT professionals and volunteers. Of these, about 160 monitored systems in the TOC (technology operations center) which was the control and command center of the whole IT operation. The tech consortium had eleven partners, including Acer, Omega, Panasonic, Samsung, and Singapore Telecommunications.

Samsung gave 10,000 smartphones, and SingTel provided SIM cards and subscriptions. Acer did the first level of imaging or operating systems for twenty-five different configurations of laptops. Omega did the time-keeping, scoring and other results-related services; while Panasonic provided all the audio-visual equipments and display panels. The data center infrastructure and multimedia services came from SingTel.

We leveraged our experience in providing IT systems for all the Olympic Games since the first one that we did at the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002, Atos Origin says, We and our tech partners spent 30,000 hours testing and validating the whole ICT infrastructure to ensure that all ICT systems were tested, secured and operationalized for this mega-event in Singapore.

Atos Origin has handled ICT integration at every Olympic and Winter Olympic Games since 2002: Salt Lake City (2002), Athens (2004), Turin (2006), and Beijing (2008). It has also won contracts to handle ICT integration for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver (2010) and Sochi in Russia (2014) as well as the Olympics in London (2012) and Rio de Janeiro (2016).

The Commonwealth Games are as complex as the Youth Olympic Games, and ICT is just as crucial. The worlds eyes will be on India, both before and during the games. India has already got a bad press report, given the delays in getting venues up and ready for the games; nature has added a dose of fury with heavy downpours in Delhi. Heres hoping and praying that ICT systems that will support the games work as precisely and perfectly as they should, and win a gold medal for the best performance under the most trying conditions ever.

Raju Chellam
The writer is a former Dataquest editor & currently MD of TechTrenders Asia, based in Singapore

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