Technology in Sport: A race against the machine?

Professional sport is a world where individuals can earn as much as a decent-sized business, and teams have evolved to become multi-national corporations. And where there's money, technology follows. 

In this episode, we'll be meeting with amazing people at the cutting edge of sports technology to look at how data has become a key part of the field - and looking at what organisations around the world can learn from the performance analysis revolution.

We're speaking to Professor Steve Haake of Sheffield Hallam University about the revolution in data capture and analytics that came about with mobile computing and wearable tech, and how the data revolution has augmented the materials revolution in sports for everything from training routine optimisation to predictive injury prevention.

That's something Hawk-Eye Innovations are also exploring, alongside their better known video capture and virtual refereeing systems. Global Commercial Director Peter Irwin talks us through how mass video capture from hundreds of data points and generating real-time virtual skeletons for every person on a pitch is not only helping enforce the rules, it's predicting injuries and giving strategic insights in real time.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chief Technologist Matt Armstong-Barnes talks us through in more detail how AI and humans are interacting to create better athletes and sportsmen, and how the future of sports technology is athletes whose skills are allowed to flourish by having compute take over some of their workload. He argues AIs are getting better, but the optimum performance still comes from humans and AIs working together, especially in motorsport. 

No-one understands that better than Lucas Di Grassi, driver for Formula E team ROKit Venturi Racing. He's used to taking to the track in one of the most technically advanced cars in the world, but believes that human rules are holding the sport back. He's keen to see AI take on more of a role in the field, and to that end, is leading the charge with self-driving racecars, in his 'robo race' project. 

We also talk about how businesses can take advantage of a revolution in insights - getting the best data from a set to the right end users, in such a way as they can get the best advantage out of it. 

The long show notes for this episode can be found here: https://community.hpe.com/t5/HPE-Blog-UK-Ireland/Technology-in-Sport-A-race-against-the-machine/ba-p/7167448#.Ys7r7HbMKUk