As you may already know, in 2020 the Olympics will take place in Tokyo. What you may not know yet, is that the Olympics will be a showcase of the latest technologies that Japanese companies have been working on. It is common knowledge that Japan is tech-savy but what they are planning for the Olympics is truly mesmerizing.
Historically, the Olympics have always been a podium for countries to show off. In 1916, at the Stockholm summer Olympics, electronic stopwatches were used on a massive scale for the first time. The Berlin summer Olympics in 1936 was the first time a sporting event was broadcast live on television. In 1964 Japan debuted the world’s first high-speed bullet shaped train on the summer Olympics (Futurism, 2019).
In 2020, Japan will introduce possibly the fastest railway technology, magnetic levitation. There’s more however! Japan has built a robot village for the army of robots they have built to help guests with transportation, directions and translations (Forbes, 2019). As there is a large language barrier between Japanese and other countries, Japan has come up with an application that translates instantly. Panasonic is designing devices that guests can wear around their neck that will use this application to translate real-time (Futurism.com, 2019).
Guests will be driven around by autonomously driving taxis. In terms of buses and airplanes, Japan wants to use algae as a sustainable alternative to kerosene and gasoline. On the sustainability front, the Japanese government also plans to have the Olympic villages run on hydrogen (Futurism.com, 2019)
A show-off or not, the ideas of Japan are ambitious and exciting. Especially with regards to the sustainable alternatives to transportation and power, it is a blessing that the Japanese government is investing large amounts of money into these technologies. Someone has got to be the first and lead the other countries the way.
I am looking forward to the 2020 Olympics to say the least. Who else is?
Forbes (2019). Tokyo 2020 To Use Robots For A More Efficient And Accessible Olympics [online]. Retrieved from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevemccaskill/2019/07/29/tokyo-2020-to-use-robots-for-a-more-efficient-and-accessible-olympics/#6a64df2736ad
Futurism.com (2019). Tokyo 2020: The Olympics Of The Future [online]. Retrieved from: https://futurism.com/images/tokyo-2020-olympics-future
