Flame2017

Wednesday was the annual #Flame2017 event run by UKActive & what a brilliant event it was. The day was spent attending a varied range of talks hosted by Olympic athletes to tech experts and the night was a fun-filled evening of awards, dancing & gin. 

The event kicked off with a thought provoking talk by Steven Ward, CEO of UKActive as he discussed the growing importance of promoting physical activity within the UK. Followed by Dave Wright, CEO of Myzone, who recently launched free virtual classes and a chat feature for trainers. 

Two keynote speakers then took over the stage - Jonathan MacDonald, the founder of Thought Expansion Network followed by Luis Huete, a business school professor & author. 

For the breakout sessions we attended two talks. The first by professional skipper, Alex Phillips who has spent an astounding 17 years at sea and travelled over 150,000 miles on the water. Back in 2000 she managed the yacht "Quadstone" in the BT Global Challenge, also known as "The World's Toughest Yacht Race". The race involves navigating a 70ft steel yacht 29,000 nautical miles around the world starting in Portsmouth and heading West to East.  

The afternoon keynote speaker was none other than track cyclist Jason Kenny, team GB's 6 Olympic Gold medal holder. Kenny and Tanni Grey-Thompson discussed what its like to be a world class athlete and of Kenny's experiences at the Beijing, London and Rio Olympics. A fantastic talk with fascinating insight into the world of professional sport!

The final breakout session of the day was with Professor Andy Miah, a futurist and lover of all things tech. Miah discussed technology trends, the future of sport and fitness and possibility of augmented reality gyms. Miah stated that the "crucial tech parameters of physical activity are mixed reality, mobile health and gamification". The future of sport and fitness is developing through a wide range of tech such as health based mobile apps, esports, wearables, artificial intelligence and ingestible sensors. What sort of possibilities could technology bring to the industry? Why isn't sport made more immersive with the use of technology? An example by Miah was the possibility of projecting the Olympic swimming races live onto pools so spectators could watch and feel part of the experience. And finally, what will it take to create an augmented reality gym? Play. Compete. Develop. Exercise. Research. 

The evening was brilliant and team LeisureDB smashed their daily step count by dancing into the early hours of Thursday morning. Sat with the wonderful (& nominated) Jubilee Hall Trust team during the awards ceremony...Congratulations to all of the award winners and runners up! A huge thank you to UKActive for another fantastic Flame event. See you next year! 

Flame Conference 2016

Last week we attended the annual UK Active Flame Conference in Telford...here's a brief insight of our time there.

The conference kicked off with a talk from Tanni Grey-Thompson, the chair of UK Active, who noted that “collaboration is key to continued sector progress”. Tanni’s keynote was followed by a thought provoking talk from Steffan Hyttfors, a futurist. Using the notable catchphrase ‘WTF?’ (What’s The Future), Steffan highlighted that we must embrace the future and the changes it will bring. He believes that technology has no borders and disruption is rifer due to ever increasing innovation. Hyttfors also noted that “companies aren’t going bust because they’re bad, we just don’t need them anymore” and that 70% of Fortune 500 companies won’t be here in 10 years’ time.

Next up, we listened to Laura Penhaul who led the first all-female crew to row across the Pacific Ocean from US to Australia. Laura shared her experiences of the good, the bad and the ugly whilst at sea for 257 days. Impressed by not only her determination, we were also pretty blown away by the images of whales, sharks and turtles floating below their boat ‘Doris’. We’re looking forward to seeing all of Laura’s story in the upcoming documentary “Losing Sight of Shore”. Laura aims to inspire others and encourage them to find their own Pacific and conquer any life challenges.

From one inspiring individual to another, we listened to Simon Wheatcroft’s story. Simon lost his sight aged 17 but refuses to quit. Instead he became an ultramarathon runner. He started out by running around his local football field to tackling roads and then even the desert. Simon, who began his running career by utilising RunKeeper and the help of running companions, has now partnered with IBM to create technology to enable him to run solo.

After lunch, we listened to Sean Fitzpatrick, the most-capped All Black player ever. With a humorous yet heart-warming approach, Fitzy discussed leadership, the importance of winning and how “good people, make a good team”. Amazed by his flair, we followed Fitzy to the panel room where he talked about inspiring future leaders with Dame Kelly Holmes. double Olympic gold medallist, Sarah Edmonds, Director of Quality & Standards at Active IQ and Sharon Pavitt, the head of the Nuffield Academy.

After even more refreshments, and a quick go on PRAMA, an interactive fitness platform paired with the Oculus Rift headset, we headed back to the keynote theatre to listen to George Berkowski, a technology entrepreneur and writer of “How to Build a Billion Dollar App”. George, also director of the taxi app Hailocab, discussed disruption in the mobile app business and how the fitness industry will soon be disrupted by artificial intelligence and augmented reality. He gave an eye opening account of how Uber is monetizing on our every move; they watch our battery life to add surcharges and log our drops off points to help lower future traffic congestion. Once again, innovation is the key word here.

Steven Ward, Executive Director of UK Active, wrapped up the day’s events by underlining his vision for the year ahead with his key aim set at preventing inactivity within the UK.

Later that evening the awards ceremony took place…congratulations to all winners and runners up of the awards! A comprehensive list of the winners can be found here.

Thank you to UK Active for another fantastic event and we can’t wait for next year which will no doubt be even bigger and better.

Written by Abi Taylor, Sports Researcher