Alibaba Cloud Supports the First Winter Youth Olympic Games in Asia to Enhance Efficiency and Engagement

Staff management and ticketing platforms deployed to help enhance operational efficiency; Digital flame and Live Cloud technologies leveraged to provide more engaging experience.

To further help advance the digital transformation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, is supporting the Winter Youth Olympics Gangwon 2024 (Gangwon 2024) with its latest cloud technologies. As the official cloud services partner of the IOC, Alibaba Cloud continues to foster a more efficient Winter Youth Olympic Games and maximize the engagement for sports fans.

As Asia’s first Winter Youth Olympic Games, the Gangwon 2024 Organizing Committee has deployed its major platforms for operations, including the staff management portal and ticketing system, on Alibaba Cloud’s scalable and secure cloud infrastructure to optimize efficiency. Harnessing Alibaba Cloud’s innovative technologies, Gangwon 2024 is poised to elevate the engagement experience amongst participants including staff and volunteers, spectators as well as sports fans from across the world.

Anne-Sophie Voumard, Managing Director of IOC Television & Marketing Services said, “Gangwon 2024 is about using sport to bring together talented young people from around the world. Our ongoing partnership with Alibaba Cloud enables us to continue exploring creative ways to engage with our worldiwde audience and sports fans, while enhancing operational efficiency using the latest proven cloud technologies.”

Selina Yuan, President of International Business at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, said, “Building upon our TOP partnership with the Olympic Games since 2017, we are expanding our solutions to further drive the digital transformation of large-scale sports events. Working with the Gangwon 2024 Organizing Committee presents new opportunities for us to engage with the younger generation of athletes and sports lovers with our innovative cloud technologies. At Gangwon 2024, our technology will not only make event organization more efficient, but also give participants, including athletes, staffs, volunteers and sports fans an unforgettable experience.”

Gangwon 2024 will take place in the most northerly province of South Korea from January 19 to February 1, bringing together over 1,900 young athletes aged between 15 and 18 from 81 countries and regions to take part in 15 disciplines including Alpine Skiing and Curling.

Scalable and robust cloud infrastructure to enhance event operational efficiency

In response to the demand of the Gangwon 2024 Organising Committee for a more streamlined and accessible coordination platform, Alibaba Cloud established a Staff and Volunteer Management (SVM) portal. It provides customized features including staff and volunteer training, announcement notification on the web-app and through SMS, as well as scheduling and attendance management. The SVM portal is supplemented with a specific portal for volunteer recruitment at the preparation stage. Integrated into one unified platform, these tools are designed to ensure seamless internal collaboration in the lead-up to and throughout the event. 

The SVM portal is a critical component of the Games’ key operational systems. Hosted on Alibaba Cloud, the SVM portal has been supporting the effective collaboration of over 5000 staff and volunteers at Gangwon 2024. 

The Gangwon 2024 Organizing Committee also has deployed its Ticketing System on Alibaba Cloud, leveraging the stability, elasticity and scalability of cloud computing to ensure uninterrupted services, even during high-traffic scenarios such as ticket sales campaigns, and on-site ticket checking for event times. Supported by Alibaba Cloud’s elastic computing and network security products, the ticketing system of Gangwon 2024 is able to support over 460,000 spectators during the 14 days. 

Spreading the Olympic spirit through innovative cloud technology 

To ignite the Olympic spirit among younger generations, the Gangwon 2024 Organizing Committee adapted cloud technologies to provide a unique digital experience. 

At Gangwon 2024, the audience can witness the first cloud-based digital flame being ‘lit’ alongside the Olympic flame at the Opening Ceremony. The digital flame, displayed at a 8.6m*2.5m*2.7m physical “cauldron” stationed at the Olympic Park in Gangwon, is to be lit throughout the Winter Youth Olympic Games. By integrating real-time weather data, the backdrop of the digital flame changes to match one of 32 different defined weather conditions in Gangwon. This is achieved through a content management system developed by, and running on, Alibaba Cloud, which is capable of handling rendering, storage, management and presentation of the live content.  

To share the Olympic spirit with an even broader audience base, OBS Cloud, an innovative broadcasting solution brought together by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) and Alibaba Cloud, continues to transmit high definition live signals of the competitions to the Media Rights Holders (MRHs)” via Live Cloud. Prior to the introduction of Live Cloud at the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, costly international telecommunication optical circuits and lengthy onsite setups were needed for global live footage transmission. Now, Alibaba Cloud’s scalable and secure infrastructure allows cost-effective, quick-setup delivery of high-quality live content. 

To inspire the young generation in South Korea to unleash their creativity, the Gangwon 2024 Organizing Committee have partnered with Alibaba Cloud to host the “Gangwon 2024 Winter Youth Olympic Games Alibaba Cloud Hackathon”. Young tech enthusiasts are tasked with creating a web-based metaverse application that addresses a real-world challenge while incorporating brand elements of Gangwon 2024 and Alibaba Cloud. Winners will be announced during Gangwon 2024 and selected from a group of finalists showcasing innovative projects.