The Olympic games are perhaps the only event that brings together all global communities under one roof. This year, athletes from as many as 184 countries will compete in these games in Paris for an extensive two-week period between July 26 and August 11. Around 10,500 athletes will take part in the 2024 Olympic Games. A hundred years ago, the 1924 Olympic games in Paris had seen more than 3,000 players competing.
The scale of the Olympic Games’ impact can not be matched by any other event in the world. However, its impact goes beyond the world of games, sports, and recreation and expands to the world we live in in terms of its societal values and technological maneuverings.
Making such an event, which includes so many diverse groups, seamlessly successful requires technology as the primary aid. Since its inception, the modern-day Olympic organizers have leveraged technology in the best possible way. This time is also no exception, with various disruptive technologies present in the arena.
Today, we will look into five such disruptive technological paradigms that have the potential to go beyond the world of the Olympics and help us live a better life in this world!
Hydrogen-Powered Transportation: Increased Focus on Carbon Emission Reduction
Toyota Motors, a global partner of the Olympic Games, announced the supply of 500 Toyota Mirai cars, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, for the event. The car runs on Hydrogen, and its only by-product is water.
Once a user starts the vehicle, the Hydrogen travels to the Fuel Cell Stack to combine with oxygen from the outside air to create electricity. The result is a high-performance, zero-emissions ride!
The fact that these vehicles only produce water vapor as emissions practically makes them embrace the zero-emission technology objectives in the truest spirit possible.
Mirai has three hydrogen tanks. These high-pressure, carbon-fiber-polymer tanks are tested and proven to meet Global Technical Regulation No. 13.
The inclusion of Mirai as one of the primary vehicles for official transport in the Olympic games also shows that embracing zero-emission technology does not have to come at the cost of the vehicle’s performance. When fully fueled with hydrogen, the 2024 Mirai XLE offers an EPA-estimated 402-mile driving range rating, and the 2024 Mirai Limited has an EPA-estimated 357-mile driving range rating.
However, the focus of the Olympic committee on making all inter-event transport sustainable was not based on the supply of Mirai cars alone. While speaking about Toyota’s sustainability vision for the Olympics, Yoshihiro Nakata, the President and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe, had the following to say:
“When everyone is free to move, we are one step closer to the inclusive and sustainable society that Toyota is committed to building. That is what ‘Mobility for All’ means to us at Toyota. We share this vision with the IOC and the IPC. We want to support the athletes who devote their lives to sports and remove barriers to exercise their freedom to move.”
Driven by the vision, Toyota decided to invest in a sustained mobility legacy in Paris with the goal of halving emissions compared to previous Games.
Altogether, Toyota decided to bring more than 2,650 electrified passenger vehicles for use in Paris in 2024, of which 150 would be wheelchair accessible. Around 60% of the fleet would have zero-tailpipe emissions, including battery electric vehicles (BEV), Toyota bZ4X, Proace and Proace Verso, Lexus RZ, and fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEV), and Toyota Mirai.
After the event is over, Toyota plans to add these 500 Mirai cars to the existing Paris hydrogen taxi fleet, thereby increasing the number of FCEV vehicles to 1,500.
The Olympics also became Toyota’s flagship event, showcasing the benefits of hydrogen-powered FCEV trucks, which it developed with its partners, and hydrogen-powered FCEV forklifts designed by Toyota Material Handling.
Summarily, the collaboration between Toyota and the Paris Olympics 2024 turned a global event into a thriving hotspot for sustainable mobility tech to flourish in the future.
The words of Tony Estanguet, the president of Paris 2024, were notably significant in understanding the intensity of this disruptive tech collaboration that the Olympics witnessed this year. Estanguet said:
“Working with Toyota as a global mobility partner of the Paris 2024 Games enables us to act towards more accessible and inclusive mobility. And a more responsible one, too, as we focus on our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% for the Paris 2024 Games, in comparison with previous editions. To this end, Toyota’s innovative approach to new technologies is essential. With less than a year until we experience the Games of a new era, our work with Toyota is becoming more concrete every day, and we are very happy about it.”
While mobility is one aspect, another crucial aspect for an event like the Olympics, which is visited by thousands and thousands of players, visitors, delegates, and whatnot, is security. And the use of cutting-edge technology was evident in this field as well.
Click here to learn about the development that made hydrogen more attractive as a source of energy.
Enhanced Security Paradigms in Place with Best-in-Class Tech
The assurance of security in the Paris Olympics 2024 also saw a significant embrace of disruptive technology. At a Depeche Mode concert in March 2024, France tested Artificial Intelligence-driven video surveillance technology successfully for its deployment throughout the Olympic Games.
France passed relevant legislation in 2023 permitting the use of AI video surveillance for a trial period during the games to identify abnormal events or human behavior that could potentially happen at any large-scale event.
Four companies, namely Videtics, Orange Business, ChapsVision, and Wintics, were assigned to develop software that would use algorithms to analyze video streams from existing video surveillance systems to help identify potential threats in public spaces.
The AI surveillance software could flag eight different events that could lead to an increased threat, including crowd surges, abnormally heavy crowds, abandoned objects, the presence or use of weapons, a person on the ground, a fire breaking out, or the contravention of rules on traffic direction.
The software allowed the authorities to set specific thresholds within each of these categories. By setting these thresholds or specifying these markers, the authorities could flag situations where the number of people crossed a certain mark or a certain type of vehicle entered the crowd that was not considered safe. This software could also flag unusually-timed activities during an event or at a location.
To keep the city and its locations safe during the event, these software capabilities were bestowed on the national and local police, firefighters, public transport security agents, etc. However, the technologies were developed with the precaution of not breaching private spaces. The tech, despite being disruptive and best-in-class, was careful not to breach private space.
Matthias Houllier, the co-founder of one of the four tech companies mentioned earlier—Wintics—said the following about this aspect:
“There’s no personal identification method in our algorithms. It’s technically excluded.”
Apart from their technological sophistication, these surveillance systems also came under an evaluation committee created by France’s Interior Ministry that was committed to keeping tabs on civil liberties throughout the trial period. The committee comprises no less than a high-ranking official within France’s top administrative court, the head of the country’s privacy watchdog, CNIL, four lawmakers, and a mayor.
Click here to learn all about investing in artificial intelligence.
AI-Powered Language Translation: Creating a Seamless Field for Diversity and Inclusion
At a broader level, AI played a highly crucial role in transforming this year’s Olympic games into a highly efficient sports extravaganza. The engagement of AI with the Olympic Games of 2024 has five focus areas. Supporting athletes and the principles of clean competition and safe sport is a priority. Ensuring everyone has equal access to the benefits of AI, the initiative aids in optimizing Olympic and Paralympic Games operations with a focus on sustainability. Additionally, it targets growing engagement with people and drives efficiency across the management of the IOC and Sports.
One crucial aspect of all these that needs to be handled with care and efficiency is communication. Under the first focus area, the use of AI in this year’s Olympics ensures collaboration and participation within organizations by streamlining internal communications, which includes transcribing meeting notes, facilitating multilingual translation, organizing contracts and archives, etc.
According to more specific reports, keeping the Olympics in mind, the Paris Public Transport System (RATP) has allocated over 3,000 agents with artificial intelligence-supported translation devices to help hundreds of thousands of visitors navigate the capital’s network.
A device called Tradivia has also been deployed that can translate between French and 16 different languages, including Mandarin, Arabic, and Korean. The text appears on the screen and is also read out loud.
While speaking about the intention of the authorities that drove these efforts, RATP representative Gregoire de Lasteyrie said:
“We will have visitors from all over the world who will come … It is important to provide them with the right information. Being able to speak to them in as many languages as possible and helping them find their way in Paris is extremely important.”
The AI-powered translation services have also made public service workers more confident. According to a Paris metro worker Raphael Gassette:
“We no longer have this fear of thinking ‘oh no, we’re not going to understand each other,’ and here we know straight away, with regards to the languages here, to press … and immediately have clear, more precise information, and we can be sure that when the visitor leaves, they’re satisfied.”
While it is important to keep everyone safe and empower everyone to communicate effortlessly, it is also necessary to enhance the standards of experience. The Olympics happen once every four years, and viewers spend their hard-earned money to enjoy the experience to the fullest. This year, Augmented Reality paradigms are playing a big role in elevating the experiential value of the game by several notches.
Augmented Reality (AR) Experiences
The International Olympic Committee (IOC), along with several of its commercial partners, launched a series of highly immersive AR experiences on Snapchat to inspire, engage, and excite. More specifically, Snap’s AR Camera Kit technology powered a range of experiences through the official app of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as well as on Snapchat. The featured elements included Olympic data feeds, IOC archival imagery, and more.
The IOC, in collaboration with Snapchat’s Paris AR Studio, launched a series of AR Lenses for fans at home and worldwide to ensure that the experience is as inclusive as possible and that everyone feels connected to the Games.
The collaboration between these two entities also created a unique AR interaction with the official poster of the games. It comes to life when scanned to fans across the world via the Games’ official app and its official Snapchat profile.
Apart from the collaboration with IOC, Arcadia, Snapchat’s AR Studio, also partnered with NBC Universal to bring a suite of exciting AR experiences to immerse Gen Z fans in the US. These experiences included personalized tune-in recommendations complete with real-time stats. It also included country-specific elements such as Team USA athletes and their Bitmojis, including Team USA Paralympians.
Snapchat also collaborated with Coca-Cola to introduce the first-ever AR vending machine to the event attendees. The machines could be found in the Athlete villages and Coca-Cola’s international food fest. They came with a custom Snapchat AR mirror that offered photo ops, games, prizes, and refreshments from Coca-Cola.
Altogether, a 360-degree approach could be made possible by using augmented reality to make the experience more enjoyable, thriving, and entertaining.
Finally, let’s visit the most crucial space for technology to disrupt and improve: the space that interacts with athletes by monitoring their performance and health in real-time.
Click here for a list of top augmented and virtual reality stocks.
Smart Wearables for Athletes
Wearable tech, combined with the benefits of the Internet of Things, helps achieve a lot in any sporting event. Available records show that the 2016 Rio Olympics had nearly 10,000 wearable devices distributed to athletes to measure and monitor their performance, health, and recovery. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics witnessed increased penetration of these devices, with around 50,000 smart wristbands distributed to spectators, athletes, and staff. These wearables served the purpose of tracking body metrics, providing access control, and several other interactive features.
In 2024, IoT-enabled smart wearables will also be hailed as game-changers. A smart wristband can keep a constant eye on the athlete’s heart rate, sleep quality, recovery status, and more.
Apart from keeping track of athlete data, these wearables can deep-dive into the available data to offer tailored training tips. The use of the most advanced sensors makes these wearables identify every tiny shift in the player’s training regime. The advancements achieved in the fields of big data and machine learning also help in this regard. The actionable insights that these devices provide help players improve their performance on a runtime basis.
Concluding Thoughts
The inclusion of a host of disruptive technology paradigms not only comes with a positive impact on the event, enhancing the standards of the game, but its repercussions last beyond the immediate arena of sports and diffuse seamlessly into our public life.
That is why these technologies are crucial for our world and human civilization per se. We have already seen the inclusion of hydrogen-powered cabs in Paris’s daily life. The wearable and security systems being deployed in the Olympics 2024 will also definitely find use in our daily lives.
The inclusion of sophisticated and efficient tech also helps keep the games’ budget under control. According to an Oxford University study, every city hosting the Olympics has exceeded its initial budget by a large margin since the 1960s. But this time, the Paris Olympics is expected to come in at under $10 billion—only about 25% over the initial budget.
The 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2020 Games in Tokyo deviated from their original budgets by more than 350% and 280%, respectively. Paris could operate within a deviation of a mere 25% because the city already had most of its infrastructure built, and technology is a core component in keeping a city’s infrastructure healthy.
Altogether, from AI to AR, these disruptive technologies not only result in enhanced efficiency, improved safety and security, and better experience but also make it possible to expand the space where technology merges into our daily public life to make it incrementally better each day.
