The following interview is part of our ongoing Expert Series that asks C-level professionals, team presidents, league executives, athletic directors and other sports influencers about their latest thoughts and insights on new technologies impacting the sports industry.
Name: Arno Hermans
Company: Sport eXperience
Title: Founder
City: Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Arno Hermans is the Founder of Sport eXperience, a sport accelerator program based out of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. He is also the founder of 3Dmouthguard, which digitizes the process of creating custom mouthguards for athletes via 3D printing.
He is working to expand Sport eXperience around Europe and this work provides him with unique access and insights into European sports technology startups. On Thursday November 3rd, Arno is organizing Sport Business Day, an event in Eindhoven that will bring 40 international sport startups together to pitch their companies and attend master classes from business experts.
1. What utilization of technology in sports has recently blown you away?
To be honest, I am amazed by the enormous amount of innovations I see every day from startups. During our Sport eXperience program I was personally impressed by B-DAM, Freesense Solutions, RaceONE, SHFT and Talents of Tomorrow. Just to name a few.
2. What are your plans for growing Sport eXperience? Where did it start and where is going?
In 2011 I founded the Sports Engineering department within the Dutch Royal Institute of Engineers. Former Cervélo CEO Gérard Vroomen gave me the inspiration as engineer of the year to found this department. As my network grew around startups, I made the combination of sports, technology and startups.
In 2014 I interviewed over 100 people to validate the concept of a sports accelerator. Investors, startups, sports companies, universities and other stakeholders were enthusiastic, but the question of execution was always present. Earlier this year, my three business partners and I took the plunge and started our first cohort. Since then, we have been learning every day and consider ourselves a startup as well. We support startups with our customer centric approach and work to help all entrepreneurs with their international growth ambitions.
Our first event had 50 attendees and our second event grew to more than 100. And in August we had the opportunity to help Danish and Swedish startups in Copenhagen.
Up next is the international expansion of Sport eXperience in Europe. While we are located in Eindhoven and are working on scaling our ecosystem into Denmark, Ireland and Poland.
3. If you had to invest in one technology that would change the global sports industry, what would it be and why?
I think robotics has the power to change the sports industry, completely. Not to mention robotics helping disabled people and even competing against athletes. We saw a glimpse of the future with this year’s Cybathlon in Switzerland.
4. If money were no object, what technology would you build or buy to help you do your job better?
I wouldn’t build a technology, but I would love to be a sports investor. Just to help new sport startups with their innovations. I’d like to contribute to make an entrepreneur succeed. Not only with money, but also with the networking. Sport eXperience is built on the principles to support the entrepreneur and if money were no object I would focus fully on this.
5. As a sports fan, what sports-related service, app, product, etc., could you not live without?
I’m keen on results. Whether it’s from my local football or volleyball club, I’m also interested in other (foreign) leagues. So I surf the internet and install apps to see live results, standings and program. I use the NeVoBo app (Dutch Volleyball Federation) to see the latest scores of my team.
6. If you had to project 20 years into the future, what will be significantly different about the global sports technology industry?
Technology will be part of daily life. There’s no doubt. The sports industry will integrate with healthcare and the leisure industry. Therefore future brands will transform into a more global brand that impacts every hour of our lives.
I think there’s also the other side where people like to go back to nature; work with nature and disconnect. It’s going to be a whole new industry just to get out and take part in outdoor activities with the help of technology to improve those activities.