Alibaba Cloud Launches Collaboration Platform for Sports Events

Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, today unveiled at Apsara Conference 2021 Premium DingTalk for Sports Games, a digital solution aimed at streamlining the organization and communications for large-scale sports events. The new solution will be used for the 2022 Asian Games, to be held in Hangzhou next September, serving over 100,000 participants from across the world.

Leveraging DingTalk’s established cloud-based enterprise collaboration platform, the new sports solution provides a one-stop collaboration tool to connect stakeholders at all stages of the event hosting lifecycle – from organizers and suppliers to volunteers and venue operators – enhancing the operational efficiency of sports events.

“Alibaba Cloud’s ambition is to transform the experience of sports in the digital era. As part of our continued efforts to achieve this goal, our new DingTalk solution is designed to help users manage and operate large-scale sports events in a more structured manner, leveraging DingTalk as an enterprise collaboration tool as well as utilizing our cutting-edge cloud technologies and infrastructure,” said Selina Yuan, General Manager of International Business Unit, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “Following our success in delivering technological solutions and services to digitalize the Olympics Games Tokyo 2020, we are excited about the opportunity to support the upcoming 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou.”

This solution allows different groups of event participants to join the platform through a single gateway, from anytime and anywhere. Organizers can manage these groups individually through a back-end platform, streamlining workflows while facilitating effective communications within and between groups.

To help event participants including volunteers and venue operators from across the world better communicate with each other, the platform also provides instantaneous multi-language translation, remote video conferencing and many other functions to ensure smooth and real-time information exchange.

“At DingTalk, we are aiming to facilitate the digitalization of organizations and corporations. With the launch of Premium DingTalk for Sports Games and our upcoming cooperation with the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, we are ready to provide the latest in digital platform services to global sporting event organizers,” said Alex Li, Vice President of DingTalk.

Other sports solutions unveiled during Apsara Conference 2021, held from October 19-22, include an AI-based simulation training solution for volunteers, which can provide virtual training for event volunteers in a cost-effective manner.

Based on AI algorithms, robots create an immersive training environment by simulating scenarios in the real world and generate insights into trainees’ achievements using a standardized and systematic ranking system. By analyzing training insights, these AI robots offer real-time feedback to volunteers and provide tailored retraining sessions to help them improve performance.

Moreover, Alibaba Cloud launched a cloud-based ticketing system to optimize digital ticketing services at sporting events. This was adapted from a customer service system that was previously used by Alibaba Group marketplaces such as Taobao and Tmall. When a game needs to be rescheduled, the system, backed by Alibaba Cloud’s conversational AI technology, automatically informs ticket holders and handles refund requests.

Alibaba’s innovative AI technology and rich business scenarios make it a pioneer in the industry. Alibaba was named a Major Player by International Data Corporation (IDC) MarketScape, in its worldwide conversational AI 2021 vendor assessment. Alibaba is included in the analysis for the first time for its strong and capable conversational AI capabilities and industry expertise.

Alibaba Cloud has been committed to promoting the digitalization of sports in recent years. It also launched various cloud-based solutions and services to support the digital transformation of the Olympic Games during Tokyo 2020. These included Alibaba Cloud Pin, a cloud-based digital pin that enables media professionals to engage with each other in a safe and interactive manner, and an intelligent ear-worn device that helped onsite staff reduce the risk of getting heatstroke during the summer in Tokyo.