Q&A: Olympic Games IT exec details challenges for '06 event

Enrico Frascari says he and his IT team of 400 are ready

By Thomas Hoffman

December 14, 2005 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - NEW YORK -- On Feb. 10, the XX Olympic Winter Games will begin in Turin, Italy, and Enrico Frascari, managing director of technology for the Torino Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, says he will be ready. It takes years to design, implement and test the IT infrastructure needed to support the Winter Olympics, said Frascari, formerly CIO at Olivetti Lexikon. He leads a consortium of 11 companies responsible for IT at the upcoming games, which includes the timing, scoring, imaging and telecommunications. While in New York this week for Olympic meetings, he spoke with Computerworldabout the challenges of running such a big IT operation and some of the new technologies being unveiled in Torino.


Enrico Frascari

How did you come into this role? When the Olympics were awarded to Turin in 1999, I was very much interested, since it was in my country and my city. The organizing committee called me for an interview. I didn't know it would be for the Olympic Games. They only said it was for a big project.
What's happened since you joined in early 2001? When I started, I had nothing in front of me. I was the first [IT] staffer. The first challenge was to create an IT infrastructure to support the organizing committee. In parallel, I started to design and award an infrastructure for the Games. I now have a team of 400 people. In 2001 and 2002, I spent time in Salt Lake City with the people who organized those Games.
What lessons or best practices did you learn from your peers in Salt Lake City? I tried to learn as much as possible, and I tried to avoid mistakes. For example, we reuse the same architecture that was used for the Winter Games in Salt Lake City [in 2002]. However, they tried to integrate telecommunications and IT support, and I decided instead to keep them separate.
What does the IT infrastructure look like? Lenovo is our primary computer equipment provider. We have 350 servers, 5,000 PCs and 800 notebook computers.
There are two major families of applications. One is a games management system, which supports many things, including transportation and accommodations for the athletes and the schedule of games. Then there's another system for scoring and distributing results. One is for timekeeping and one is for producing, publishing and distributing the results.

Are there any new technologies being deployed in Turin? These have been tested before, but it's the first time we'll be attaching transponders to each ankle of speed

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