Svexa’s Director of Sports Tech & Innovation Stina Lundgren Högbom recently participated in the STRN Summit 2024 in Ghent, in particular a session reviewing startup innovation pitches. The new Wintercircus venue made a great backdrop for discussion of innovation and tech startups, which included a mix of co-creation sessions, inspiring keynotes and interactive roundtable discussions on a variety of sports & health related topics.
Several key themes emerged:
- Ownership of data: increasingly a critical consideration for any company in the sports tech space – how can individuals control their own data, how can it be shared with coaches or others, can it be aggregated for learning by the tech provider, what and how should it be shared with teams or federations?
One of svexa’s fundamental beliefs is that athletes must own their own data, and tools like our Performance Passport are designed so they can take their data and insights as they progress their career. - The importance of scientific evidence: how can you show the effectiveness of your tech for clubs/athletes/coaches?
Svexa emerged from leading human performance science teams at Stanford and Karolinska, and we continue to push the boundaries through primary research. This provides a clear scientific foundation for our product development, and we back that up by conducting scientific studies about topics such as performance prediction or injury prevention. - Frameworks for progress: STRN has led the charge in developing standard reporting, frameworks and data capture in the world of sports tech. As we move forward, we must continue to make good use of work that has been already in this area, and make it easier for external partners such as federations to work alongside sports tech and academia to jointly push forward our collective understanding in human performance.
- Sustainable and ethical AI: Professor Erik Manners presented a very interesting Keynote on this challenging topic. In recent years AI seems to be touted as the default answer to many questions, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that it still requires human intervention to maximize the potential.
Svexa’s view is that AI alone is not enough, it must be informed by deep domain knowledge in human performance and related science.
Svexa will continue to support STRN, we look forward to upcoming events!
In addition to her role at svexa, Stina supports a variety of tech startups through her work with incubators and investors in Europe, primarily in the Nordic countries.
