Speaker: Alex Balfour, Head of New Media, The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Ltd

About the lecture

The Pinkerton Lectures will take a perspective based on computer engineering but broad enough to invoke parallels from elsewhere, and will explore the steps along the path from innovation to application. Each lecture will aim to identify the processes involved in such a transition, analyse their ingredients and determine how they can be replicated.

The Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 were truly the first digital Games in terms of public viewing*. By 2012 digital media will be ubiquitous and the demand for digital coverage will be far higher than in 2008.

Yet the average age of Games viewers has increased by almost 20 years since 1988. Attracting young people is crucial for the Olympic and Paralympic movement’s survival. But, faced with a huge number of competing demands for their time, young people are largely disengaged.

London 2012’s vision is to "use the power of the Games to inspire change" and the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) is determined to engage, inspire and reconnect young people with the Games.

About the speaker

Alex Balfour joined the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games as Head of New Media in September 2006. At LOCOG he has launched a number of initiatives including a viral video celebrating London’s accession to Olympic host city which has been viewed over 1 million times, a storymap showing work in progress and the Olympic movement’s first ever blog.

Alex has a track record of building, managing and commercialising successful content on the Web, on mobile and on emerging platforms.