Samsung Technology Helps Public Health Analysts Access, Visualize, and Connect Data During the 2026 World Soccer Games

To support public health preparedness, Samsung Electronics America, Inc., participated in a coalition during the 2026 World Soccer Games. Samsung provided the Health Security Operations Center (HSOC)¹ with display and mobile technology solutions that enabled the sharing of critical data and collaboration among 30 participating organizations. The HSOC is a part of the National Center for Health Security and Resilience, a collaboration between Georgetown University and MedStar Health.

For more than six weeks before, during, and after the tournament, the HSOC produced daily Situation Reports, conducted twice daily briefings and provided early notification to local health departments when disease signals were identified, demonstrating how centralized monitoring and coordinated information sharing can help surface emerging issues for further assessment. The disease signals monitored by HSOC included major public health concerns, such as norovirus, measles and COVID-19. Additionally, the broader operating picture helped teams maintain awareness of other health and safety risks, including natural disasters.

Supporting a Front-Line Command Center

Drawing on its experience supporting government agencies, Samsung worked with the HSOC coalition to build a functioning operations environment in the weeks and ahead of the tournament’s opening match. Samsung provided the center with technology, including laptops, tablets, and large-format displays, to help public health experts securely collect, analyze, visualize, and communicate health intelligence during the Games.

These solutions helped the HSOC team act on shared public health information from over 50 data sources spanning more than 145 jurisdictions, including data connected to airports and tournament travel, as the team monitored signals across hundreds of pathogens and assessed potential risks.

“Public health operations centers can prove critical during international events and gatherings of all sizes, especially mass gatherings that draw millions of people from around the world,” said Todd Maxwell, Director of Regulated Business Development, Samsung Electronics America. “In these instances, health leaders need coordinated, multidisciplinary situational awareness to aggregate and analyze disparate public health data, and enact immediate communications and response if a risk emerges.”

Turning Health Signals into Shared Intelligence

The HSOC brought together specialists from academic institutions, public health and healthcare organizations, and private-sector partners to assess emerging health signals and develop a holistic view of potential risks. The specialists monitored information from healthcare systems, environmental programs, international health alerts, public sources, and communities connected to tournament travel.

A key source of the HSOC data was Verily Health, a Samsung partner. Verily Health contributed pathogen-level wastewater detection and insights data from its Sightline wastewater sampling network and government-sponsored wastewater monitoring programs. HSOC analysts could examine those findings alongside health system information, vaccination coverage, international alerts, and other contextual data rather than evaluating individual signals in isolation.

The Galaxy devices that Samsung provided throughout the HSOC provided the endpoint for the operations, allowing the HSOC to easily and effectively analyze multiple sources of health-related information and data via the technology.

AT&T provided wireless connectivity to extend Samsung’s technology ecosystem beyond the walls of the operations center, enabling connectivity across jurisdictions and helping HSOC teams coordinate with local health departments, field contacts, and partner organizations. Also, HARMAN, a Samsung subsidiary, provided JBL speakers and headphones to support audio and voice communication among teams working across the HSOC.

“Having connected technology is critical for end-to-end flow of intelligence, from aggregating real-time public health data to presenting a unified view of disease signals for monitoring and decision making,” said global health security expert, Rebecca Katz, Ph.D., M.P.H., a professor at Georgetown University and HSOC Director. “Our goal was to make the HSOC a trusted resource for the public health community, health systems, and most importantly, the public. We were able to bring that mission to life by ensuring our teams operated within a connected environment for distilling public scientific data into actionable guidance during a complex, large-scale event.”

The technology infrastructure and workflows established for the tournament offer one example of how an operations environment can be deployed rapidly, centrally managed, and scaled as operational needs change. A core environment could support ongoing monitoring, for instance, while connected mobile technology could extend situation reports, guidance, and other trusted information to personnel beyond a central command center.

To explore how connected security operations centers can strengthen public health preparedness and learn more about Samsung’s role in the HSOC, please visit: insights.samsung.com/2026/08/26/health-security-operations-centers-the-future-of-public-health-preparedness

1 The Health Security Operations Center is an independent initiative led by Georgetown University and MedStar Health and is not an official program of, or sanctioned by, FIFA or the FIFA World Cup 26.