GE to support 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics
General Electric (GE) Korea CEO Chris Khang, center, poses with Christopher Katsuleres, third from left, GE’s director of Olympic marketing & sports programs, and members of the Korea Ski Association after signing a sponsorship agreement at company headquarters in Seoul, Sept. 22. Under the accord, GE has extended technical and financial support to skiers who will represent Korea at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. / Courtesy of GE Korea
By Lee Hyo-sik
General Electric (GE) is ready to share its technological knowhow and expertise with Korea for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
A longtime dedicated partner of the Olympic Games, GE has also been extending technical and financial support to Korean national teams to help them outperform their rivals at the upcoming sports event.
On Sept. 22, 2016, GE Korea signed an agreement to sponsor the Korea Ski Association (KSA). Under the accord the company will use its advanced digital industrial technology to help train KSA skiers. The training programs combined with GE’s digital technology will be a key to maximizing the athletes’ capabilities ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics.
“GE has been a worldwide partner of the Olympic Games since 2005 and supported a number of sporting events with its advanced infrastructure and digital technologies,” a GE Korea official said. “Notably, GE has provided infrastructure required for constructing the Olympic facilities and healthcare to help athletes compete in their best condition. GE will once again support the 2018 PyeongChang Games by making the best use of its profound experience and knowhow.”
For KSA skiers, the company plans to develop and provide video analytics software to digitize training videos. It will then collect information on the athletes, such as speed, acceleration, angle and path race and analyze the information in its digital industrial cloud platform Predix.
“This will provide valuable information for enhancing each skier’s performance. In particular, the wireless data transfer allows coaches to see video and data through portable devices in real time so they can monitor training and videos more conveniently,” she said.
It is not the first time for GE to support Olympic teams through its advanced technologies. Leading up to the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, it applied digital technologies to Brazil’s canoe athletes, enabling them to win five medals.
Likewise, the company aims to support Korean skiers at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
To promote close communication and collaboration with key partners for the PyeongChang Games, GE Korea opened the GE-PyeongChang Olympic Collaboration Center in PyeongChang, Gangwon Province, early this year.
The company is the first Olympic partner to build such a collaboration center, further bolstering its cooperation with the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympics Games and other stakeholders.
GE also plans to offer energy and healthcare technologies with the industrial internet, as well as help build sustainable and innovative infrastructure in PyeongChang.
It provides an uninterruptible power supply and switchgear that monitors the power supply in real time and manages emergency situations such as blackouts at the Alpensia Sliding Center and Jeongseon Alpine Center.
“We are also providing industrial internet to monitor all Olympic Game facilities in real time, maximizing operational efficiency,” the official said. “The PyeongChang Olympics holds great significance as a global sporting event, but it is also expected to be a driving force for building infrastructure in Gangwon Province and for the development of the regional economy. GE is more than ready to support the PyeongChang Games.”