In 2024, the DigiFit project is moving into its incubation and piloting phases. Called the ‘DigiFit Learn and Do Experience’, this phase is a 12-month programme that provides specialised support to local grassroots sports organisations and clubs to help them become “fit for the digital age”. From 29-31 January, the DigiFit partnership will gather participants representing solution providers, mentors and grassroots sport organisations for a DigiFit bootcamp at Le Tremplin in Paris, the French innovation platform for sport to kick off the incubation programme.

Created in 2015, Le Tremplin is an innovation platform dedicated to sport, supported by Paris&Co, the Paris' economic development and innovation agency. In total, 37 organisations will be represented at the bootcamp, including the host Paris&Co. At ISCA, everything we do is about people so we are also happy to highlight and celebrate our diversity with 19 nationalities being represented during the bootcamp.

The aims of the DigiFit Bootcamp are to:
•    Define key challenges for grassroots sporting organisations
•    Learn how to foster the culture of digital innovation and design thinking
•    Provide open discussions for organisations to gain ideas and feedback
•    Initiate preliminary action plan for investigating digital solutions
•    Discover broad networks of European sporting organisations and key solution providers

Overall, the initiative focuses on a critical industry issue and aims to tailor a bespoke digital solution to tackle it effectively. The process involves carefully orchestrated matchmaking between the participating sport organisations and solution providers. This collaboration aims to test and adopt concrete digital solutions into their operational workflows.

The bootcamp is the first step following the project’s research phase, including a European wide survey, to unveil the current Megatrends, and an open call for applicants to the DigiFit Learn and Do Experience and Incubation Programme: Get fit for the digital age, which was launched in October 2023. By mid-November 2023, 45 grassroots sport organisations and 24 solution providers had answered the call. We are happy to officially announce the selected participating organisations, mentors and solution providers.

THE 10 SELECTED GRASSROOTS SPORT ORGANISATIONS:

•    AmagerBoxingClub (Denmark)
•    Estonian Company Sports Federation (Estonia)
•    Firies Football, Hurling and Ladies Football Club (Ireland)
•    Hérault Sport (France)
•    Olympiacos SFP (Greece)
•    Polisportiva Varedo (Italy)
•    Centro Treino Mar - Sporting center for sea training (Portugal)
•    GAME (Denmark)
•    Table Tennis Sport Club Kefalonia & Ithaki (Greece)
•    FFCK (French Federation Canoe-Kayak) Regional committee of Centre Val de Loire (France)

THE 10 MENTORS:

•    Miikka Neuvonen, City of Vantaa, Finland    
•    Lucy Mills, READY, Spain    
•    Kieran Collins, Technological Univeristy Dublin, Ireland    
•    Grainne Barry, Sport Tech Irealnd, Ireland
•    Renata Baptista, IKP - Ippon Karate Portugal, Portugal    
•    Filip Filipic, Atlassian, Serbia 
•    Lode Goosens, Hylyght, Belgium
•    Arnaud Barbazange, National Sport Agency, France    
•    Nicholas Theodorakis & Byron Chrysovergis, Aristotle University, Greece
•    Antonella Santoro, Along Sustainability, Italy    

THE 10 SELECTED SOLUTION PROVIDERS:

•    Surpass Sport Systems (Ireland)
•    321 Sports Academy (Germany)
•    Nova Sport (Belgium)
•    VICTOZ (Denmark)
•    Motivu (Denmark)
•    BST.COACH (Czech Republic)
•    Lumo ApS (Denmark)
•    Game Plan Manager AS (Norway)
•    Upshot (United-Kingdom)
•    CJT SOLUTIONS (Greece)

Background on the DigiFit project

In January 2023, six partners joined forces to start the DigiFit project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. This two-year Erasmus+ project is exploring how digital transformation and innovation can be harnessed to build resilience and capacity in the grassroots sport and physical activity sector to make it fit for the digital age.

The project is led by ISCA, with partners PRN SI (France,), University of Cork (Ireland), IPDJ (Portugal), DGI (Denmark) and EPSI (Belgium).

Find out more about the project: digifit.isca.org/