High-Tech Access to the Olympic Games
May 2008
By Bruno Gimmig
At the twenty-ninth Olympic Games, each of the 12 million spectators expected in Beijing will carry a little bit of French technology in their pockets. The contract to design the tickets for all the competitions was awarded to ASK, a business based in the south of France. The result, a mass of technology packed into a ticket measuring 20 x 9 cm.
To open the doors of the Beijing National Stadium as if by magic, if you want to attend one of the sporting competitions scheduled between 8 and 24 August, all you need is to have in your pocket the fruit of the application of some fifty patents such as inlay paper, silver ink printed antenna and flip chip die attach or RFID (Radio-frequency Identification) labels.
But, mind you, we are not talking about computer components here, but the entrance tickets that each spectator has to carry with him or her to attend the Beijing Olympic Games. Unlike traditional tickets, admission to this global event depends on technology designed and marketed by the French company ASK and contained within a piece of paper.
This company, based in the south of France, has come up with an innovative solution to the question put by the Beijing Olympic Games Organising Committee: “Who can supply 14 million tickets which are secure, impossible to counterfeit and which will allow proper regulation of the flow of people expected at the Chinese Olympiad?”
In operation for a mere ten years or so, ASK has become the world leader in contactless smart cards, contactless paper tickets and RFID labels with over 70 million products in circulation worldwide. Originally a modest start-up, this French company now employs over 130 people and in 2006 generated a turnover of 35 million euros, 70% of which was in exports.
For a global event on this scale, an international partnership seemed imperative. So, in order to produce this fully recyclable high-tech ticket in massive numbers, ASK joined forces with Tong Fang, China’s third largest PC manufacturer, to create a joint venture dedicated to the manufacture and marketing of contactless products. With state-of-the-art production equipment, the players involved in this partnership are able to deliver up to 200 million units of contactless paper-based tickets, inlays and labels each year.
“All the Olympic tickets are made in China and the chip is cast in Chinese forges, but the technology behind its insert, together with its antenna printed in a conductive silver ink, is ours,” explained Bruno Moreau, CEO and co-founder of ASK, to the Reuters press agency. These tickets made in France & China, printed by the China Bank Note company, include counterfeit-proof security features. ASK’s partner is donating the whole RFID system of the Olympic Games, which includes the RFID inlays, gate readers, software and service.
Apart from making the stadiums secure and offering improved anti-fraud features, these tickets should also actively help make life easier for spectators because entry to the sites will be much more free-flowing. The cutting-edge RFID technology is an integral part of the security systems deployed throughout the Olympic Games and is one of the innovations of this Olympiad.
Not merely a mechanism for large-scale events, the applications of this technology are many and they are growing all the time. These include, of course, the access control markets, but also logistics and traceability as well as public transport, the military sector and the fight against counterfeiting.
Although this use of contactless technology for admission to the Olympic competitions may be a first, it is not ASK’s only venture into the world of the Olympics, since the company had already successfully contributed to the 20th Winter Olympics, during which the public transport authorities of Turin and other partners involved in this event called upon its expertise.
Now that ASK has a foothold in the immense Chinese market, the company’s directors fully intend to build up their presence there. In the medium term, they are aiming for the “jackpot” of ticketing the Shanghai World Expo in 2010, which expects 70 million visitors. In a sector that is even more competitive than an Olympic final, the French experts at Ask are well aware that, contrary to what Baron Pierre de Coubertin said, the important thing is not just taking part...