Postgraduate students take part in Sports Pro Hackathon
Students from the MSc Sports Business and Management and Football Industries MBA programmes recently took part in Sports Pro Live’s Global Sports Business Hackathon event.
A hackathon is an event which brings participants together to collaborate on a project over a short, intensive period of time. During the Sports Pro Hackathon our teams competed against students from around the globe.
The challenge facing students this year centred around the “Triple bottom line” with students being challenged to create from scratch an innovative solution to drive social, financial, and environmental sustainability in sport. The Management School entered two teams consisting of a mix of five MSc Sports Business and Management students and three Football Industries MBA students. Both teams developed unique ideas with one designing specialist sportswear, and the other focusing on a platform concept aimed at supporting the broader development of young athletes.
The Management School placed second overall (out of 18 teams) and also won the prize for “Most Environmentally Sustainable Solution”
One of the teams, Liverpool All Stars, commented: “Definitely a challenging but worthwhile experience. In just two days we managed to create an innovative and feasible concept which will be beneficial to many athletes.
“We had the opportunity to represent the University in a worldwide competition, networking with outstanding students and industry leaders to develop solutions in sport; based on the Triple Bottom Line (people, planet, profit). We achieved a great result, finishing second overall and winning the prize for the most environmentally sustainable concept. During the weekend we actively collaborated between both FIMBA and MSc students, challenging ourselves to apply our knowledge while working under pressure in a time-bound situation.
While the hackathon provided a stimulating challenge for students, it also provided an opportunity for students from two of our established programmes in the Centre for Sports Business to collaborate, network, get to know each other better, and importantly has acted as a catalyst for possible future enterprise concepts delivering real-world impact:
“We did not leave this at the end of the hackathon, and are continuing to explore the possibility of turning this idea into reality by following up with several of the external contacts we made when reaching out during the hackathon” (“Academy” Team).
David Cockayne, MSc Sports Business and Management Director of Studies, commented “Both Tunde (FIMBA DoS) and I are delighted to place in the top three and win one of the concept awards – especially as this was our first tournament. Both groups have demonstrated excellent application of knowledge gained this academic year, and have represented our school wonderfully – well done all!”