Opening day of the 4th Sports Technology Symposium

The Barça Innovation Hub began the latest edition of the Sports Technology Symposium this Thursday in the Auditori 1899. This international congress has been consolidated as the most important in Europe in the field of sports technology, and until Friday will be hosting leading international experts at the Camp Nou. The opening day was attended by the FC Barcelona director and head of the Barça Innovation Hub, Marta Plana, who gave the welcome speech to the more than 800 accredited guests.

Smart facilities, sports analytics, player development, data and decision making and new innovation models were among the topics discussed on the first day. The partnership between the Barça Innovation Hub and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) was also presented, thanks to which the first edition of the UNWTO Sports Tourism Start-up Competition is being held, a project designed to source innovative projects with the potential to transform the tourism sector in the near future.

The smart facilities block featured William Mannarelli, director of the FC Barcelona Real Estate Area, who told the audience about the key elements of Espai Barça and announced the agreement established between FC Barcelona and Norwegian company Catenda, through which the project will be monitored by BIM technology, which offers extremely accurate details of the construction process of all the architectural components. Mannarelli was joined at a round table discussion by David Bailey, director of digital research for Formula 1 and Benjamin Steen, head of customer services at Bayern Munich, among others.

The section on sports analytics discussed the importance of organisations being aware of their strategic data. According to experts, if this preliminary reflection and screening procedure is undertaken properly, it is easier to obtain information of real value, rather than being overwhelmed by too much data. This session featured Luke Bornn, vice president of strategy and analysis at the Sacramento Kings and Javier Fernández, head of sports analytics at FC Barcelona, ​​who shared their valuable opinions on this issue.

The Sports Technology Symposium will continue on Friday morning with the final round of discussions on such issues such as obsession with mobile phones and social innovation projects.

STATEMENT BY MARTA PLANA

“When Barça created this symposium, we did so to make it an international forum to discuss the performance and analysis of data and digital experiences in the field of sports. The Sports Technology Symposium has become one of the important assets of the Barça Innovation Hub. The spirit that drives BIHUB is that of generating, incorporating and sharing knowledge. This is the knowledge that we have accumulated over many years of experience in areas such as team sports; sports performance; sports analysis and technology; health and well-being; fan engagement and big data; smart facilities and social impact”.