HP volunteers, equipment keep Special Olympics running

Nagano, Japan, played host to the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games, February 26 through March 5 - the first Special Olympics ever held in Asia. About 2,500 athletes from 86 countries competed in six categories: Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, speed skating, figure skating and floor hockey. Approximately 150,000 spectators, 650 coaches and 10,000 volunteers were there to cheer them on.

The event was considered so important that dignitaries such as Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito and Prime Minister Koizumi participated in the opening ceremonies. Former United States President Bill Clinton attended several of the games, including the U.S./Japan floor hockey competition. At the heart of it all, HP employee volunteers and equipment helped Nagano extend its warm hospitality to visitors from around the world.

HP equipment kept the heart of the games beating, whether staff was checking an athlete's identification, classifying an athlete for a competition, or entering competition scores. HP Japan contributed 322 notebook PCs that staff and volunteers used throughout the games' operations - from information desks, such as the one at Nagano Station, to the medical check center for the athletes. Fourteen HP servers - one DL-5601 and 13 DL-380s - kept the event's IT system up and running smoothly.

HP also contributed its most precious asset to keep the games going - employees who wanted to be volunteers. Tadashi Suto, an engineer in the Server and Storage Product Development Division of the Enterprise Storage and Servers Business Unit from Tokyo volunteered at Special Olympics Town (SO Town) - a place where athletes could interact with one another and unwind and a place intended to bridge cultural differences between athletes and locals. SO Town was the place to go to play games with new friends, have one's face painted, try origami, hear music concerts and surf the Internet.

Suto quickly fell into the rhythm of life at SO Town, where, at the Internet Corner, he helped athletes and their families connect online, using HP notebook PCs. HP, in fact, supported the entire Internet Corner for the games with 10 HP volunteers; one or two traveled to Nagano every day of the Special Olympics to work in SO Town.

Suto also demonstrated "Squeak," a learning technology for both children and adults developed by HP Senior Fellow Alan Kay and his associates. A member of HP Squeakers, an HP Japan volunteer group that is committed to introducing Squeak into the Japanese educational system, Suto said that all 10 volunteers at the Internet Corner were members of this group. Now that the games are over, the donated notebook PCs will go on to a second life at Japanese elementary schools that plan to implement Squeak.

For Suto and the other HP Japan volunteers, the heart of the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games will still beat in all of them long after the closing ceremonies, with an especially strong rhythm. "I thought it would be a valuable experience for me to meet so many different people, and it was," he says. “ I was very impressed that the athletes and their families had such a bright, positive outlook. It helped broaden my own views.”