[ad_1]
Global professional services giant Cognizant has been named SailGP’s official digital transformation partner ahead of the second season of the championship.
Attracting more than 1.8 billion viewers worldwide during its inaugural 2019 season, the elite international sailing race SailGP is now set for its second championship season, starting in Bermuda on April 24 with further meetings in Europe, the US and the US. New Zealand. Cognizant, the world’s leading professional services firm, has been named the official digital transformation partner for the event under a multi-year agreement.
“We are thrilled to join forces with a like-minded partner who shares our commitment and values,” said SailGP CEO and five-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts, who founded the $1 million competition along with Larry Ellison and Oracle. “Starting today, Cognizant will actively participate in the development of SailGP and our purposeful ‘Race for the Future’ agenda to accelerate change to a cleaner and more inclusive future.”
For the uninitiated, SailGP involves competing national teams – this year including defending champions Australia along with New Zealand, USA, Great Britain, Denmark, France, Spain and Japan – racing identical “F50” catamarans capable of speeds in excess of 100 kilometers per minute. hour. To further ensure fairness, the large amount of data collected by Oracle is shared between the teams in an effort to prevent a costly America’s Cup arms race.
As part of the partnership agreement, Cognizant will team up with Oracle to further enhance the IoT (Internet of Things) capabilities operating on each of the ships, with the F50 fleet described as a “smart city on water” by generating 30,000 data points. per second per vessel. With teams able to gain a critical advantage by analyzing open source data, the goal is to better inform decision-making, improve performance and ultimately “speed the ship.”
Similar to rival Infosys’ partnership with the Australian Open, Cognizant was further tasked with creating an immersive experience for SailGP fans, using its digital expertise to enable data visualization and improve audience insights. This will include an overhaul of SailGP’s website and later its mobile app, providing key performance metrics in real-time, including details such as boats’ speed and distance and even the sailor’s heart rate.
Off the track, Cognizant will also join SailGP’s environmental and social initiative Race for the Future, which, in addition to being carbon neutral through offsetting (with the goal of being “fully powered by nature” by 2025), supports host cities with innovative solutions to reduce carbon emissions . Along with sustainability, the initiative will also aim to promote greater gender and racial diversity in the sailing industry through accelerated training and development.
“We are delighted to be the Official Digital Transformation Partner of SailGP and bring Cognizant’s expertise in digital transformation and software engineering to the forefront of the world’s premier climate-positive sailing championship,” said Ursula Morgenstern, President of Cognizant Global Growth Markets.
Cognizant is no stranger to highly elite sports, having been named title partner of the new Aston Martin Formula One Team and global partner of the PGA tour’s Presidents Cup earlier this year, and has also previously been tapped by the FA to help accelerate engagement with women’s football in the UK.
Meanwhile, skipper Tom Slingsby will return to spearhead Australia’s SailGP defense with women’s Olympic silver medalists Lisa Darmanin and Nina Curtis joining the team.
[ad_2]