It’s been barely five months since the 2004 Summer Olympics finished in Athens, Greece, and already, planning has begun for the next games — halfway across the globe from Chapel Hill.
Next month, three UNC faculty members — Noel Greis, John Kasarda and William Powell — will attend a conference in Beijing to begin planning for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The three-day conference will begin Feb. 25.
Such an event is necessary because the Olympics pose a tremendous preparatory challenge, Greis said, noting the hundreds of thousands of athletes, trainers, Olympic officials and spectators who will fill the already crowded city of Beijing.
Greis, director of the Kenan-Flagler Business School’s Center for Logistics and Digital Strategy, said UNC’s involvement in the event came about because the University already has ties with Tsinghua University in Beijing. Tsinghua is working with the city to resolve logistics concerns.
“We were contacted by Tsinghua University, by people who were … working to develop a logistics program and were looking to collaborate on this program,” said Kasarda, director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise.
Kasarda said Tsinghua is considered the “MIT of China” by many.
Greis became involved in Olympic planning after a colleague in Greece participated in warehousing for the most recent Olympics, and Greis herself played a small role in planning for that event.
Typical concerns include providing all the equipment, food, housing and transportation for the 200,000 people expected to take part in or observe the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The Olympics represent what Kasarda calls “a surge in logistics” in that everything and everyone arrives at essentially the same time and then must be moved out of the city immediately after the event.
