Sports Tech Summit stimulates knowledge exchange and development of innovations in sports

Collaboration has become the key to develop new technologies in the sports sector today – you just can’t do it on your own. Therefore Victoris brought together people from various backgrounds – researchers, policy makers, entrepreneurs, field practitioners and many more – during a two-day summit in the city of Ghent. We welcomed over 30 speakers from 10 different countries in order to discuss the best strategies for developing innovative technologies that can impact the health and performance aspect of sports.

The link between science, policy, business & practice in sports

Since the very beginning, Victoris’ mission is to bridge the gap between science and practice by helping companies, organizations and people in the development and the creation of new technologies, products and services in the field of sports.

Nowadays, many congresses already exist that are dedicated to sport research and innovation. But the connection between science/universities, policy, business and practice in sport has rarely been covered before. Therefore we decided to fill this gap by organizing our own summit. On 25 and 26 October 2018, the first edition of the Sports Tech Transfer and R&D Summit took place in Ghent.

Promote knowledge exchange & stimulate innovations in the sports sector

The conference featured about 30 cutting-edge presentations, inspiring keynotes and interactive panel sessions with experts from leading companies like ADC, Suunto and Sportradar and from for example Loughborough and Mid Sweden University. We were also very pleased to welcome speakers from professional teams such as PSV Eindhoven, Club Brugge KV and our Belgian Red Devils.

Among the attendees were sports professionals, researchers, start-ups, entrepreneurs and innovation managers from more than 15 countries worldwide. The aim of the summit was to promote knowledge exchange between governing bodies, public authorities, academia and industry, and as such boost the commercialization of innovative sports technologies.

After the summit, the attendees went home with 3 key takeaways:

  1. Innovation is all about collaboration. But that doesn’t mean you have to give everything You always need to have some protected IP in case you want to bring something to the market. (Prof. Wim Vanhaverbeke, Innovation Management & Strategy, Hasselt University)
  2. The sports sector is a very hybrid one. Sports tech is not like any other industry. If you’re too commercial, the soul doesn’t like it. And if you got too much soul, you won’t be doing enough commerce. (Prof Martin Carlsson-Wall, Stockholm School of Economics)
  3. You can’t pick a winner, the ecosystem produces winners. (Dr. Martin Schlegel)

Following the success of the summit’s first edition, we’re already thinking about hosting a second edition in 2019. We want to focus even more on hands-on workshops and practical sessions. We’ll keep you posted very soon!

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