The July 8 WWTO tackled how wearable tech is changing the game of sports for the fan, athlete and coach. The night kicked off with presentations from two Canadian startups, Magniware and TritonWear, both with wearable tech which is helping the coach gain better data about their athletes to better training. Following the startups, Dale Fallon, Director of Product Management at Sportsnet & NHL Digital took the stage to talk about how wearable tech is furthering fan engagement citing examples of how wearables worn by the fan and worn by the athletes themselves are providing new experiences for the audience both at home and in the stadium.
The on-stage sessions continued with a panel discussion on wearables and athletes which was made up of Alex Mosa of Magniware, Tristan Lehari of TritonWear, Dale Fallon of Sportsnet, Rami Nabel of PUSH and CFL Hamilton Tiger-Cats defensive lineman, Brian Bulcke and two-time Olympic athlete, Greg Douglas. The panel spent a lot of time debating the privacy implications around wearables tracking athletes and how persistent tracking could change the way athletes are scouted, paid and even gambled on. Another hot topic was the benefits wearables afford coaches and athletes over more traditional data collection options which see athletes stuck in a lab to get insights into their performance.
Ending the night before the audience moved into the demo area were two presentations, one from WearHacks winner Breathaliver who developed tech to help keep drunk drivers off the street and the other from Onyx Motion who announced the launch of its Indiegogo campaign to develop a digital coach for wearables called Swish.
Visual Talks captured the entire event in a fantastic sketch which we have for you below. A big thanks to Visual Talks for the awesome sketch notes.
