Inno4Sports Interregional Exchange and Knowledge Capitalization Seminar Eindhoven
DAY TWO
Day two has started at OpNoord, an inspiring location where the “InnoSportLab Sport & Move!” is housed. The introductive section focused on The Vitality Living Lab (VLL) project, which is one of the strategic projects of the cluster Sports & Technology.
The first speaker of the second day was Mr. Harmen Bijsterbosch, manager of InnoSportLab Sport & Move!, who spoke about the partnership #040Beweegt! (040Moves!). This partnership focuses on Eindhoven citizens with the aim of creating the chance to sport and move in a personal way, matching personal wishes and needs. Public spaces are used as a lab with the goal of getting as many people as possible durably involved in sports and activity by technological innovations. The goal is an active city with healthy citizens. #040Beweegt! involves citizens in an accessible way, by setting up experiments and research projects.
The Vitality Living Lab (VLL) project:
Back to the topic introduced at the beginning of the morning session, many speakers have shown different aspects of the VLL Project. One of the main components of the VLL project is the “innovation in the neighborhood approach”, the aim is to use innovative solutions for societal challenges through an intensive involvement of citizens and the use of data collected to monitor the effect of these solutions. A key element of this project is then, the collection and management of the data. A specific database has been created to collect data directly from the citizens during sport activities in precise urban districts with the aim of creating different figures about sports and vitality in the region of Eindhoven. Mr. John van de Laar, has introduced another important element of the VLL project, the Vitality Acceleration Program (VAP). All start-ups in the Vitality Acceleration Program have a solution for a problem in the area of sports and vitality. The VAP is unique because it is not a fulltime program and attending the workshops is voluntary. In this way, it is possible to participate for people who have already a company or another job. Workshops are given by partners of the Cluster and participants are coached intensively.
The closing session of the morning focused on Urban Sports and E-Sports. Within the Cluster Sports & Technology, an Urban Sport Performance Centre has been set up with the aim to bring the Urban Sports to a higher level and make Urban Sports more attractive through knowledge, innovation and technology. The center works together with other cluster partners, for example Imec, to reach these goals. Mr. Maxime Verdijk, one of the speakers of this session, presented some inspiring results of the center’s activities. An example was a sensor for skateboards which is able to measure the position of the athletes' feet on the board. It gives you feedback which can help to improve your tricks. Gathering data can help the jury to judge the tricks. The center has also developed “City legends”, an app for Urban Sport. The app is a combination of Instagram and Pokemon Go. The aim of the app, which gives the possibility also to film yourself, is to make Urban Sports more attractive. The Urban Sports center also focusses on injury prevention by gathering data during training. Regarding E-Sports, Mr. Robin Sweegers from Techonomy presented some interesting aspects of this growing market and why is an interesting field for influencers, marketing and companies:
• Big E-sports tournaments with huge prize money are organized and a lot of people often follow it.
• Half of the people who play E-sports also play traditional sports and this is changing the approach that e-sports are antagonists to regular sport
• A lot of investors are interested in E-sports because is a new strategy to reach and activate the new generation.
• Companies invest a lot in promotion around games. Also, traditional sport clubs step into E-sports to explore the possibilities to connect more people to their clubs.
Day two has been concluded with a tour of sport facilities in the Genneper Parken and some local InnoSportLabs like the “Tongelreep”. The lab collects data from (professional) swimmers to improve their performance. The swimming pool contains different cameras whose images are analyzed just after the performance. In the lab, researchers work to generate knowledge during daily training and matches. The research is also conducted on talent recognition and Paralympic swimmers are supported with training and match data.
