Usono participates in STRN Summit
On 14 and 15 September, Usono participated in the Sports Tech Research & Innovation Summit in Ghent, Belgium. The Sports Tech Research Network (STRN) is an initiative of consortium Victoris and non-profit organization SportaMundi. This newly found initiative brought together 140 like-minded people in sports innovation from all over the world.
To get a 2-minute impression of 2 fantastic days, see the aftermovie. The text continues below.
Matchmaking between industry, academia and sports
Our CEO Victor has been in touch with STRN from the start and played a role in the organizing committee of this first edition of the STRN Summit. When asked about the uniqueness Victor stated “I think the STRN Summit is unique because it matches a few different disciplines: industry, academia and sports.” Attendees from more than 15 nationalities were present, which resulted in a very diverse and high-quality audience where matchmaking was key. This mix of people is very clear when looking at all the different speakers including people from FIFA, NBPA, Team NL, Club Brugge, Royal Football Club Antwerp, University of Melbourne, Ghent University, University of Madrid, Northwestern University, inMotio, Oro Muscles, Alphabeats and many more. Thanks to the pre-planned meetings via the platform “Conversationstarter” it was convenient to meet all relevant people. Other meetings happened unplanned and from newly made introductions, while plenary sessions, break-out rooms, panel sessions, good lunch and drinks did the rest of the (net)work.
Customer visit UZ Gent
Early Thursday morning, Victor also visited our customers Dries Pieters and Lauren Pringels from the University of Ghent. The two showed their great laboratories at UZ Gent, where ProbeFix is successfully used in exciting research projects using cadavers and shear-wave elastography using their SuperSonic Imagine and GE Healthcare systems! Dries Pieters also uses a custom developed tool which we’ll communicate about more soon. It was great to chat with users of our products and to jointly think about new applications and use-cases with ultraosund.
Moderating an “entrepreneurship” panel
After this great visit, Victor moderated a session about “Bringing Sports Tech to market: the role of student (athlete) entrepreneurship” with Steve Stevens (DO! UGent), Lars Elbaek (University of Southern Denmark), Charlotte Van Tuyckom (HOWEST University of Applied Sciences) and Joachim Taelman (Sport Vlaanderen). During this 30+ minute session, important aspects regarding starting up a company in sport/medtech were discussed, on which Victor commented: “It’s important to teach students an entrepreneurial mindset without pushing too much to start as many startups as possible. We need new disruptive companies and creative business thinking, but students should be aware of the average chance of success (success rate) and all the challenges that come with entrepreneurship.” The panel agreed and some of the universities have great structures in place to involve entrepreneurship properly in the actual curriculum. Another great takeaway was that we can all think better about the entrepreneurship chances and role of (ex-)athletes, food for thought!
The fantastic 2 days ended with a VIP dinner where a great first edition was celebrated with a select group. Special thanks to initiator Kristof De Mey and team (including volunteers!) for the great planning organisation and execution of this summit!
