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Beijing Aims for a High-tech Olympics

Chinese scientists are searching for ways to ensure that participants in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games have fresh air to breathe, healthy food to eat, they can travel quickly and easily and feel secure. Some are even exploring ways to help Chinese athletes find ways to earn more medals, according to a China Daily report.

A top-level consulting team of 400 or more senior scientists and engineers will focus on 449 projects aimed at making the Beijing Games a festival of high-technology.

Du Zhanyuan, a planning official with the Ministry of Science and Technology, said 1.3 billion yuan (US$157 million) of government funds and 1.8 billion yuan (US$217 million) from companies has been channelled into 449 science and technology projects in preparation for the Olympics.

Breakthroughs have already been reported in making Olympic construction sites greener and more energy efficient.

To achieve China's ambitious high-tech goals, Du's ministry and the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee on November 5 organized an international forum that was attended by more than 350 participants from governmental and research organizations and companies.

Experts said that the focus should be on long-term approaches.

"I think the key is that these technologies should serve the Olympics, but not just for the Games," Zhang Jianyu, a visiting scholar with the School of Public Management of Tsinghua University, told China Daily.

He said he expected these technologies, which should help realize China's goal of becoming a well-off society, to not become one-off novelties.