London Olympics 2012

London Olympics 2012

London Olympics 2012

Nearly four and a half years ago London was immersed in celebrations at the announcement that the next Olympic games would take place in the UK's capital. But with all the bad press surrounding the inflated budget for the prestigious event, the British people were soon to sober from the inaugural Olympic fever that swept the nation.

So how much has the projected cost risen to and what percentage of this is needed for IT and technology? Are IT professionals benefiting from a new source of jobs and will this event lead to long term opportunities in the IT recruitment sector?

Technology and the Olympics

With the Beijing Olympics a massive success, how are we going to measure up for London 2012? Will we be able to follow in their footsteps or will we let the side down?

If last year's Olympics are anything to go by, we've certainly got our work cut out (Walker, & Weber, 2004, 373-391).

China organised wireless information systems for journalists; radio frequency identification technology for ticket verification (RFID); commentator information systems; worldwide TV coverage (including HD and 38 million online video streams) and Digital Ignition Control Systems to control any time lag between fireworks displays in the various venues. Inconceivably, organisers of the Beijing Olympics even attempted to control the weather with technology by sending missiles soaring into the sky to prevent rain.

And that's not to mention the unforgettable opening ceremony that illuminated the floor of the Bird's Nest as performers took to the stage and wowed us with over 44,000 LEDs in the infamous scroll alone.

So what about London 2012?

ZDNet.co.uk, stated that the IT infrastructure in London will consist of more than 900 servers, 8,000 PCs and 1,000 network and security devices. And these numbers have all been lowered through the planned use of green IT systems such as virtualisation to reduce the number of servers needed and control costs. As the system will link more than 94 venues across the UK as well as the Olympic Village itself, it is vital that this is sound to ensure the event runs smoothly.

An article on Silicon.com has claimed that nearly £7billion pounds will be pushed through the technology sector as part of the grand event. This includes a projected budget of £204m for information systems, £63m for telecommunications and £12.5m for Internet applications allocated by The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (Locog) (Beath, 2001, 355-370).

Potential Problems

Apart from the projected cost of this event being estimated at over £20bn (ten times the original amount), there is another crucial matter to be considered.

At this year's InfoSecurity conference David Blunkett raised this issue of IT security at London 2012. There are fears that the information systems used in the Olympics could be used as an easy target and could pose a real threat to national security (Galliers, 2008, 89-91). Although physical security measures are being put in place, some fear that weaknesses in the Olympic IS may be overlooked and could easily be ...