Alibaba’s DingTalk revolutionizes collaboration
at the Hangzhou Asian Games
EXCHANGING information at an event like the 19th Asian Games, which is now happening in Hangzhou, China is crucial at many levels.
Managing registrations like athlete sign-ups, volunteer listings and audience tracking for ticket sales; providing real-time updates like event schedules, results, and news; coordinating logistics such as transportation, accommodation, and food; and providing security for the participants, including access control and surveillance, are the major activities needed constant communications and collaboration.
Alibaba’s messaging platform DingTalk is now being used at the Hangzhou Asian Games in a different role. Called “DingTalk for Asian Games,” the communication and collaboration platform has been specifically enhanced to specifically to meet the needs of the operational efficiency of the 2023 Asian Games, happening now until October 8.
“DingTalk for Asian Games provides a platform to unite users in pursuit of a common cause and interest. We firmly believe that for future mega sports events, the adoption of such an intelligent collaboration platform will be indispensable for enhancing operational efficiency and communication management,” Alex Li, Vice President of DingTalk said.
“We applied the DingTalk platform to make the experience at Asian Games better for all stakeholders. As it is hosted and managed on Alibaba Cloud it means it is easily accessible but at the same time scalable and more secure. So, DingTalk makes it more efficient to monitor and manage the event like deliver updates to spectators and the media covering the event,” Donglian Guo, VP of Product and Solution, International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group told media attending the technology presentation conducted at the Alibaba Campus.
“Through seamless cooperation between the Asian Games Organizing Committee and DingTalk, DingTalk for Asian Games has achieved a monumental collaboration across levels, departments, and regions, embracing ‘organization online, communication online, and business online.’ This solution represents not only the digital economy prowess of Hangzhou but also a valuable asset and experience that Hangzhou is eager to contribute to future international large-scale sports events,” Ge Zhang, Deputy Director of the Radio, Television, and Information Technology Department of the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee remarked.
Leveraging Alibaba Cloud’s Machine Translation services, grounded in cutting-edge deep learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, DingTalk for Asian Games provides intelligent real-time translation in 14 languages, including Chinese, English, Japanese, and Thai. This enhancement fosters more effective communication among staff and participants from around the globe.
The “digital office” presented by DingTalk’s platform enables staff and volunteers to collaborate effectively without the need for physical workspaces. Organizing committee and venue operator teams can collaborate on documents through online previews, real-time editing, and efficient version control management. Furthermore, it can process approval requests across approximately 300 applications, covering administrative services, asset usage, supplier certification submissions, marketing activities, and more. To date, it has facilitated over 7,700 paperless approvals, contributing to efficiency and environmental sustainability.
DingTalk for Asian Games integrates cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to understand, respond to, and generate content to address a wide array of event preparation needs. The built-in Chatbot can automatically provide timely answers to Games-related questions by analyzing and extracting information from event-related materials, including game manuals and related group chats. Users can also leverage DingTalk’s AI capabilities to simplify content digestion, such as extracting highlights from press releases.
Equipped with low-code features, it also empowers users to create customized applications tailored to new scenarios. For instance, a low-code appointment application was developed for athletes, allowing them to conveniently and efficiently check the availability status of training venues in Asian Games stadiums located in different areas of Hangzhou and nearby cities and book their training sessions in advance through a built-in mini app. It also seamlessly integrates with DingTalk-compatible devices, including TV boxes and more.
“Alibaba Cloud is the technical backbone of the Alibaba Group and the platform manages and processes all the information of the Asian Games. All this data, like you mentioned, optical data for broadcasting on the Alibaba Cloud, for example is only being processed in our platform, and we are not the owner of the data. But because of this this information becomes much more accessible because it may be accessed in our data centers found in any one of our 89 availability zones globally,” Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group said responding to a question from Malaya Business Insight.
The robust utilization of this Alibaba’s innovations in recent months has firmly established it as an integral component of event organization. In August, the platform witnessed over 4.5 million messages exchanged in a single month, accompanied by the creation of more than 12,000 workgroups. With a daily average of over 50,000 visits, its services encompass administrative approvals, conferencing, training, sponsor support, weather monitoring, and medical assistance.
