Kunal Malik CTO San Francisco 49ers Creating Green & Software-Driven Stadium

Kunal Malik

Kunal Malik, San Francisco 49ers CTO (previously Facebook Director of IT), keynoted at the December 2013 SV Forum Technology Meets Sports Conference, and is rethinking new fan experience by making it into 'one awesome UI' by creating a software-driven stadium.

He and his team created some of their own technology because the technology didn't exist and has been using open source scalable platforms.

Highlights include:

1. Big suite tower to bring people closer to the action
2. Make it green: Solar panels, Energy-Neutral on game day, and first NFL Stadium to be LEED certified
3. Bringing new dimension to fan experience: Open space and lots of concession stands to avoid long lines
4. Challenge: Integrate disparate tech systems including point-of-sale systems, video displays, ticket purchase systems
5 Build out data platform so person cooking knows how many items to make
6. Mobile priority including ticket scanning and game center with instant replay
7. Personalization: When arriving at the stadium, the Greeter/System knows who you are, i.e. This is your 25th game and we're going to reward you with 29 percent off
8. Find your seats and your friends: Give recurring value to fan; want a scarf and it will tell you where to find it


Game on: How can we bring an experience so you don't miss a play?

1. Game Center mockup: Here's a quick score; Friendly icon showing the Replay; Tap screen and watch the play again in landscape view; Multiple angles; Do all of it in real-time as fast as possible .. Get replay before next play starts
2. In the meantime: Order food and beverages - Go into mobile device, Select food an drink, submit, says order is being processed and order sent directly to kitchen, Kitchen expediter receives order and runner delivers items to seat with notification sent to customer that order is on its way; Mobile workflow notifications; Delivers to 70000 seats; First time that this scale of order-and-delivery has been done in a stadium
3. Order a game jersey - Same concepts apply to merchandise

As a result, food is not stale due to Operations Optimization, Uses data to optimize staff; Can't predict everything but prepared for various scenarios.
When you go to the online store it will know you to improve experience. Kunal's Team will build out predictive analysis and run fan experience that's very informative including creating behavior and loyalty programs for people who have favorite players. They are looking at fans and seeing what they want.