GE Showcases Latest Technology Through London Partnership

(ATR) GE’s head of Olympic sponsorship tells Around the Rings his company will focus on healthcare and energy at the London Olympics.

As a 2012 sponsor, GE provides a variety of technology, including diagnostic imaging, lighting systems, aircraft engines and energy generation systems.

While GE offered a wide range of technologies to organizers of the Beijing Olympics, the company then narrowed its focus to healthcare products in Vancouver last year.

"Beijing was our first Summer Games, and I don’t think we knew quite what to expect and the focus was pretty much across the GE product lines," says Peter Foss, GE's president of Olympic sponsorship and corporate sales.

Foss tells ATR that GE will deliver next year a dual focus on energy and healthcare, particularly within the U.K. healthcare industry.

"Our healthcare business is headquartered here," he says. "It’s one of the few GE businesses headquartered outside the U.S."

Another difference between London and Beijing is GE's level of exposure in the respective host cities.

"We were relatively unknown [in Beijing], although we had a pretty big presence in terms of doing business there," says Foss.

Heading into London, GE’s brand is much better recognized, he says.

"We’re a pretty big company already in theU.K. with around 12,000 employees, and outside of the U.S. it would be our second largest revenue-market.

"So we’re well-established, but that gives you an opportunity to demonstrate to some people what you can do," he adds.

GE is already demonstrating its latest technology in London.

The company recently donated $8 million worth of medical equipment, including fetal monitors and incubators, to Homerton University Hospital in East London.

Tower Bridge, the iconic suspension bridge over the River Thames, will be enhanced by an LED lighting system that will reduce its carbon footprint and energy costs during the build-up to the Games.

GE also worked with the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square to recreate a Vincent Van Gogh painting with 8,000 living plants as part of London's year-to-go events.

"We do things that are pretty visible but at the same time they always have a link back to some key GE technology – Tower Bridge being lighting and the hospital, of course, healthcare."

Written by Ann Cantrell.