Tata Communications partners with European Tour for IoT, VR solutions in golf

Mumbai-headquartered telecommunications firm Tata Communications and PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) European Tour are launching a competition for startups to spur technological innovations in golf.

The competition, European Tour innovation hub with Tata Communications, is aimed at finding ideas that can be developed with support from the golfing association’s business development team and venture capital firms, said an official statement issued by Tata Communications.

The organisers are looking for solutions that leverage technologies such as internet of things (IoT) and virtual reality (VR) to make the game of golf more interactive, heighten fan engagement and improve viewers’ experience of golfing tournaments’ broadcasts. 

A solution leveraging IoT or 360-degree cameras would allow fans at golf courses to follow players’ progress from across the course while also simultaneously enabling them to take part in promotional events.

Aspiring startups can enter the competition starting on September 25, 2019. By November 2019, three startups will be shortlisted after which they will attend a workshop in London next year.

At the workshop in London, the startups will develop their ideas with coaching from venture capital firms, the European Tour business development team and Tata Communications. 

Two weeks after the closure of the workshop, the winning startup will work with the European Tour’s business development team to turn the proposed idea to an application, the statement said.

The solution will be tested as a proof-of-concept at an event conducted by the European Tour in 2020.

Tata Communications has been the official global connectivity supplier of the European Tour. The telecom company brings video feeds from 46 European Tour tournaments from 31 countries. It provides the feed to 43 broadcasters. 

“We believe that to innovate successfully, organisations must bring together the right ecosystem of partners. That’s what this competition aims to do. We look forward to leveraging our relationships in the world’s VC and start-up communities to help pave the way for the digital transformation of golf,” said Tri Pham, chief strategy officer, Tata Communications.

UK-based PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) European Tour operates the leading men’s professional golfing tournaments across the continent. 

Tata Communications provides digital infrastructure services such as network, mobility and security solutions to over 7,000 customers from 200 countries. 

The company has partnered with other sports associations such as motor-racing giant Formula 1 and bike-racing association Moto GP to provide technological and allied support services.

Recent developments related to Tata Communications:

Earlier this month, Tata Communications partnered with technology networking company Cisco Systems to develop a cloud-based customer service platform. 

In August, Tata Communications joined the Hedera governing council which governs the usage of enterprise-ready distributed ledger platform Hedera Hashgraph.

In July, Tata Communications deepened its existing partnership with Microsoft Azure as it added the latter’s wide area network service to its cloud platform Izo.