Top Irish athletes are sporting the latest in wireless technology this year thanks to a joint project between the Irish Sports Council and Dublin software company, Rococo Software. The Irish Sports Council commissioned Rococo to build a wireless solution that would make it easier for athletes to communicate with the Irish Sports Council and to track their performance results when they compete abroad. More than 100 Irish athletes currently participate in the program, which was launched in December.

The Irish Sports Council and Rococo developed a plan to replace existing paper-based processes with a PDA-based (personal digital assistant) solution. The wireless solution allows high-performance athletes to use handheld computing devices to submit their performance data to the Irish Sports Council. They can also use the PDA to track their own schedules, email and manage their contacts.

The PDA will allow the athletes inform the Irish Sports Council of their whereabouts and their performances, essential information for the Irish Sports Anti-Doping Programme and for the high performance strategy.

"This Mobile Solution lets our user community of athletes remotely communicate with the Sports Council when travelling abroad to train or compete at an international level. We chose Rococo to implement this project because of their industry leadership in enabling collaboration between people and wireless devices, their delivery capability and ability to show a tangible return on investment," said Finbarr Kirwan, Manager, High Performance Unit, Irish Sports Council.

Eadaoin Ní Challarain, Irish international canoeist, commented, "The PDA is an ideal piece of equipment for an international athlete. There are a lot of demands on athletes nowadays including travel for training and competing and the PDA allows us manage and access the information we need when we are away".

Initially, the PDAs were given to eight High-Performance Directors who tested the applications in advance of a general roll out. In December, more than 140 high performance athletes in Ireland began using the PDAs. Rococo has established a dedicated Irish Sports Council Technical Helpline and provides on-site training for each athlete.

"Making PDAs work abroad was an important element in the success of the project, and we've got a lot of knowledge and experience understanding the technology that exists in tri-band or dual band environments," said Sean O'Sullivan, Rococo Software CEO. "We're pleased to see the Irish Sports Council embrace a wireless mobility solution, which can increase productivity and reduce cost for so many businesses."

ABOUT ROCOCO SOFTWARE
Rococo is an industry leader in deploying Enterprise systems and extending those systems to mobile workers. Rococo combines a track record of Enterprise integration skills (J2EE, CORBA, Messaging, .NET) with in-depth knowledge of wireless and mobile technologies including GPRS, Wireless LAN, Bluetooth and mobile software development for PocketPC, Palm and Smartphone platforms.

Rococo Software has become a leading Mobility Solutions provider in the European marketplace. Rococo was featured as one of Europe's 10 hottest technology companies in Infoconomist Magazine in November, 2001 and was named "Entrepreneurial Company of the Year" by Frost & Sullivan in March, 2002. For more information about Rococo Software visit www.rococosoft.com or email info@rococosoft.com.

Source: Irish Sports Council