The online event took place on the 15th of December at 2:00 p.m.
Sport and space technologies have never been so close: yesterday, on December 15th, EPSI and ESA conducted the eagerly awaited webinar on the call for proposals “Inclusive and accessible sport”. The online event was attended by a lot of people, representing their companies, interested to participate in the tender with their project proposals.
The webinar started with greetings from both organizing members, the EPSI Executive Director Alberto Bichi and the ESA Space Applications Engineer Kavitha Muthu, key-note speaker of the online seminar. Firstly, Dr Muthu presented an overall view of the European Spacial Agency’s work, focused on how their spacial technologies can affect the global society and how they can influence the economic market.
On that basis, one of the ESA’s goals is to be more efficient, inclusive and accessible around the sports industry: following the topics on enhancing performance, building resilience, creating a digital engagement for all and making accessible sports equipment, ESA technologies work on space applications to provide powerful services for the sports sector.
As Kavitha Muthu pointed out, ESA collaborates with sports federations, innovation hubs and sport-related companies. Dr. Muthu also presented the “Kick-start activity”, which is ESA’s funding scheme enabling companies to undertake feasibility studies that explore new services and application concepts making use of space. The overall aim of the kick-start activity: see if the company’s idea works concretely and if it is commercially viable. Then, companies can apply to the tender by registering on ESA – STAR registration platform, only after contacting their National Delegations, who will decide whether or not to approve a project.
The last part of the webinar was presented by Reinis Kregers, CEO and Founder of BST Coach, a digital platform to “create, organise and send training to athletes”, which after the pandemic aims to promote the sport through inclusion, making it affordable for everyone.
EPSI will follow the progress on the “Inclusive and Accessible sport” call for proposals during all the remaining steps. More info about the tender can be found on the ESA website’s dedicated page.