56Chapter Four / SPONSORSHIP"Atos Origin, our long-term partner, is the brains behind theinformation technology operations for the Olympic Games. Once again,they have delivered these systems flawlessly, ensuring information is relayed to millions more people than ever before and in new ways."Jacques Rogge, President, International Olympic CommitteeAtos Origin is a leading international information technology services company, providing hi-techtransactional services, consulting, systems integration and managed operations to deliver businessoutcomes globally. Since 2002, Atos Origin has led the technology effort needed for staging theOlympic Games, together with the Organising Committee. Atos Origin designs, builds, secures and runs the multiple information technology systems, managing and integrating the contributions of all the technology partners and suppliers to deliver seamless results to the world and secureGames-time operations. Atos Origin's road to VancouverAs the Worldwide IT Partner for the Olympic Games, Atos Origin was in charge again of one of themost spectacular IT projects in the world during Vancouver 2010. The company put years ofaccumulated experience into designing, operating and monitoring the entire technologyinfrastructure, and its preparations began long before February's Opening Ceremony.A massive Technology InfrastructureAtos Origin fulfilled its mandate to design, integrate, manage and secure 16 different IT systemsneeded to manage the Games and relay competition results to a world-wide audience of more thanthree billion people. Thousands of athletes arrived in Vancouver ready to show the world their talentand perseverance. Atos Origin did the same -behind the scenes with most of their victories unnoticedby most of the watching world. The Atos Origin IT team managed an integrated IT team of more than3,000 IT experts from the world's leading companies, including Atos Origin's Olympic Games expertsand the best Vancouver IT professionals. The company also developed the IT solution for thepassport-grade badges issued to all 29,900 accredited Games-time athletes, officials, coaches, media, staff and volunteers, and designed the IT infrastructure to transmit results to a worldwideaudience of 3.5 billion in under 0.3 seconds.