Blockchain applied to Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 & Paris 2024

In the process of preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, two local companies have proved their belief in that blockchain technology is the secret to offer an ultimate complimentary tourism experience to the attendees, thus enhancing the local economy as well.

Mitsubishi Estate, which manages 30% of buildings in Tokyo’s business district, is working with Fujitsu to offer blockchain-secure data sharing between restaurants, hotels and other companies.

The hope is that the shared data—which will be protected by blockchain’s superior security—will allow tourists to enjoy shorter wait times at restaurants, better hotel stays and a smoother experience traveling abroad.

Blockchain applied to Olympic Games: Tokyo 2020 & Paris 2024

Mitsubishi Estate will also team up with local telecoms company SoftBank to share data securely through blockchain. The technology should be fully optimized by the time the Olympics begins in 2020, with the hope that it will be so well integrated with the existing system that the general user will not even notice.

Mitsubishi Estate said it would see how the technology played out in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics before deciding how it could profit from the technology. A trial is underway in Daimaruyu, a business district in Tokyo made up of three suburbs. There are about 100 buildings in the area, which is 120 hectares in size. The area houses 16 businesses from the Fortune 500, which puts it on par with New York and London, according to Okuyama.

Blockchain would keep the data in the hands of the owners. Moreover, while the problem with the cloud is that it is difficult to release, with blockchain, companies can inject their data while keeping control.

However, this is just one way that blockchain technology can be used in the Olympics and in the sports world in general. In fact, blockchain could be used to:

• Facilitate mass coordination between stakeholders through decentralisation;
• Reduce costs by removing third parties;
• Build trust between stakeholders;
• Secure data and make them transparent.

Speaking about the 2024 Paris Olympics now, in his report to the Minister of Economy and Finance on cryptocurrencies, Jean Pierre Landau raised the possibility of digitizing part of the ticketing and publicly declared:

Tokens giving access to the ceremony could be issued on a blockchain for the people who contributed to the preparation and organisation of public events held alongside the games.

In both cases, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, we are looking at a range of stakeholders seeking to use the same blockchain solutions:

• Tokens to get financial (ticket reductions) and non-financial (meetups with athletes) advantages, reward fans/members/volunteers, reinforce the connection with members and their engagement, fund a club as well as take part in club decisions;
• A decentralized platform to authenticate tickets and control resale and swaps, prevent medication errors, provide personal medical data and athlete performance data, help fight doping and even foster transparency and clarity.

The ecosystem would thrive on the blockchain with interactions and value flows similar to what is shown in the diagrams below, more or less.

Participants from various sectors of activity are pooling their expertise to discuss the significant actions needed to develop blockchain applications in sports, committed to the success of future Olympics.

By Eloisa Marchesoni, see more here.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience.

Irish Tech News

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking