The only memories Lonnie Snyder retains of his visit to Walt Disney World’s Epcot as a 6-year-old child are the theme park being extremely boring for a kid and the sight of visitors walking around with maps of the park.
Nearly four decades later, the chief information officer of the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games visited Magic Kingdom and noticed there were few maps. Instead, visitors relied on mobile apps to guide them around the park. In a similar way, the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games in Orlando will utilize technology to transform the athlete and fan experiences at the event, Snyder told Orlando Inno.
For the first time, the Special Olympics USA Games will offer an all-in-one fan engagement app for 125,000 spectators, powered by a serverless infrastructure designed by Orlando-based cloud computing solutions firm Solodev. This project got some recent help in the form of an Amazon Web Services Inc. Imagine Grant, an annual grant for nonprofits using technology to solve problems.
Being one of 20 recipients of the grant helps the Special Olympics USA Games create an app that’s the first of its kind of the Special Olympics and will be used in Special Olympics games beyond 2022, Snyder said. “All of this is the first time it’s ever been possible at a Special Olympics event before.”
The capabilities of the app will include:
- Creating custom game schedules
- Live streaming competitions, award ceremonies and more
- Reviewing transportation schedules
- Engaging with in-venue augmented reality experiences
- Allowing virtual ticketing
- Push notifications for competition updates, weather delays and more
- Experimental marketing to connect with sponsorship opportunities
- The ability to send virtual “cheers” to athletes
Solodev in August was announced as the cloud consulting partner of the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games. The company was tasked with building and deploying cloud-based infrastructure for an app serving what’s expected to be the biggest games in the history of the Special Olympics USA Games. Utilizing serverless infrastructure built through Amazon Web Services will enhance the digital fan experience, Solodev Chief Digital Officer Matt Garrepy told Orlando Inno.
“You're leaving the server behind, so you don't have to predict or forecast how many servers you're going to need to go from zero to 25,000 concurrent users next June. It also allows us to reduce the cost in that timeframe, where we're not having to run lots of servers to load test that concurrent user base between now and next June. Finally, if we do get to 25,000 or more, we're not limited by that server architecture in the sense that we can't scale beyond what's already been built. We can go bigger. We can go smaller.”
The app has already been successfully tested for use by 25,000 users, Snyder said. The infrastructure will be scaled over the next six months leading up to the games, Garrepy added.
The 2022 Special Olympics USA Games will bring more than 100,000 spectators and 5,500 athletes from 50 U.S. states and Caribbean nations to Orlando from June 5-12. Not only are the games expected to create $61 million in local economic impact, but they’re a chance to showcase Orlando as city that embraces innovation, Garrepy said. “We're bringing the innovation and the thought leadership to what we're investing in, in the future, here, and we're feeding that into what's happening from an event perspective.”
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