Wearables are a multi-billion-dollar business with more growth expected. Wearable technology is fully entrenched at multiple levels of athletic competition, especially at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and professional levels where these solutions are used to gain competitive advantages by assessing health and performance of elite athletes. However, through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) training experience, a different story emerged based on pilot interviews from coaches and trainers regarding the lack of trust in wearables, and how the technology falls short of measuring what practitioners need. An NSF I-Corps project was funded to interview over 100 strength and conditioning coaches (S&CCs) and athletic trainers (ATs) regarding the current state of wearables at the NCAA and professional levels. Through 113 unstructured interviews, a conceptual map of relationships amongst themes and sub-themes regarding wearable technology emerged through the grouping of responses into meaning units (MUs). Interview findings revealed that discussions by S&CCs and ATs regarding wearables could be grouped into themes tied to (a) the organizational environment, (b) the athlete, and (c) the analyst or data scientist. Through this project, key findings and lessons learned were aggregated into sub-themes including: the sports ecosystem and organizational structure, brand development, recruiting, compliance and gamification of athletes, baselining movement and injury mitigation, internal and external loads, “return tos,” and quantifying performance. These findings can be used by practitioners to understand general technology practices and where to close the gap between what is available versus what is needed.
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TOS MEETS THE NSF I-CORPS™ PROGRAM
The authors have presented their ideas for developing a powder sampling device in the I-Corps™ program sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This is an intensive customer discovery program developed to increase the economic impact of the research sponsored by NSF.
The I-Corps™ program requires performing at least 100 interviews with potential customers in various industries. These interviews are essential to establish the need for a particular product or solution, and identify potential commercialization partners and competition. The interviews have revealed the absence of TOS principles in many companies. The interviews are designed to identify the difficulties or pain associated with current sampling practices that do not meet TOS principles.
The I-Corps™ program is a significant challenge for scientists who often avoid discussing an idea in fear of losing their great research idea. The program teaches how to obtain information without releasing the important intellectual property related to a product development idea. The I-Corps™ methods have been used to discover the prevailing ideas on sampling in various industries.
I-Corps™ also teaches how to present ideas to investors; another significant challenge for a scientist. We are currently learning to present sampling and TOS to investors and business development experts, and will share some of these experiences.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10046902
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 8th World Conference on Sampling and Blending, Perth, Australia, Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Perth, Australi
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 351-354
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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