By Nnamdi Ojiego
The economic benefits of using technologies to do business was once again restated on Thursday, at a teleconference session with journalists in Lagos.

The teleconference meeting organised by Cisco Systems and anchored by Ms Rose from the London office featured journalists and some of the Cisco’s officials from across nine cities of the world.

Speaking from Bedfont Lakes on the ‘Cisco Smart Sports’, the President of Cisco Systems for Emerging Market, Paul Mountford said technology can add significant value on the lives of the people where there is the right and improved infrastructure. According to him, the use of technology as a means of revenue generation, increases the returns on investment of organisations and individuals that deployed it into their businesses.

He said Cisco Smart+Connected Communities is Cisco’s visionary answer of using intelligent networking capabilities to weave together people, services, community assets, and information into a single pervasive solution.

“Smart+Connected acknowledges the essential role of the network as the platform to help transform physical communities to connected communities. It also encapsulates a new way of thinking about how communities are designed, built, managed, and renewed to achieve social, economic, and environmental sustainability.”

He said their aim was to connect stadiums, control traffics , provide health care and ensure the security of lives and properties of the people, stressing that sporting events go beyond providing infrastructure for competions.

Mr Mountford explained that Cisco sports and entertainment solutions were designed to connect fans with their favorite teams and with each other in entirely new ways through interactive and personalized experiences. According to him, the experiences are entirely defined and driven by the fans, even as he revealed that Cisco smart wireless technologies were used in the last world cup in South Africa to protect the people during the tournament.

Speaking further, he said; “You can buy and upgrade tickets through your phone or interactive kiosks around the stadium, have customized video feeds from other games around the league, selection of camera angles, and instant replays.

You can order food at your seats, purchase merchandise, have in-seat access to interact with other fans around the stadium, and even check in at work. With the Cisco Tele-presence facility you could now interact with your favorite fan after the game or receive real-time information on digital displays”.

Mountford also said that the smart technology boosts economic sustainability facilitating new job opportunities for citizens and help to drive economic growth as new businesses and key industries flourish. He disclosed that one of the ways sponsors of sporting competition could get returns on their investment is by using the screens at the venue of the events to advertise.

He stated that they are partnering with government to establish low cost broadband access to rural communities. “ The real answer is to provide wireless access to broadband”.