Internet of Things in sports

Challenge group at the Royal Institute of Technology

I am part of a challenge group approaching the application of IoT on sports. Today we met at KTH Executive School (The Swedish Royal Institute of Technology) for the first time.

The challenge group
Well, I was invited to be a member of this constellation because of my versatile background in digitization and sports combined. The team consists of a varied formation of technology researchers, physiology researchers, business people and entrepreneurs. Me, I am there as a former elite athlete, a former president of a sports federation, and mainly as a representative of the digitization council of the national sports confederation. The group has been formed as part of a national program for the Internet of Things in which the purpose is to build the case for IoT on a broader scale. The idea from the organizer MTC is that a shark tank of specialists should be able to initiate coordination within the subfield of sports and wellbeing – also known as the Internet of Sports. The idea is brilliant because the potential is huge but coordination is missing.

The challenge group on the Internet of Sports
The challenge group on the Internet of Sports

The topic
There is actually no other limit than imagination to what connected devices can do for sports. Imagine putting sensors in all gadgets, wearable electronics in all sports wear, creating sensor networks in all arenas, live measuring of biological and physiological factors through body sensors, etc. And then utilizing the metrics from hundreds of thousands of practitioners to draw conclusions and fine-tune the practice of individual sports specifically and exercise generally. Sports could be immenselly enhanced by understanding so much more about its core characteristics and it could simultaneously advance the health movements as suppliers would have a more solid base to build broad solutions on.

MuaythaiPersonally I have seen the way these metrics could be used to better understand how to train and how to compete in muaythai. With broad data on pulse diversions, blood sugar levels, adrenalin levels, etc, and combining them with huge data sets on image analysis on successful scoring in competitions we could help any country conquer any sport.

Today we are a bunch of few starting this, but in the long Run it is not a question what would happen if we succeed – it is a question of what will happen if we don’t.

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