CommunicationPublished on 28 March 2024

2024 MagglingenThinkathlon: Dartfish – putting data to good use

This year’s MagglingenThinkathlon, a special block week in the Bachelor’s degree programme at the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen (SFISM), was attended by 18 of its own students, as well as nine students from the Department of Technology and Information Technology at Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH-TI). The aim of the event was for students to develop a prototype and a business model using video and other data from the company Dartfish in a meaningful and targeted way.

Design thinking approach in group lessons — © BASPO

Dartfish is a globally-active Swiss company that has been developing video software to improve team and individual performances in sport for 25 years. Ariane Weber, Thinkathlon course director and sports economist at SFISM, says the topic of this year’s challenge – How can data be used to display key information in real time during a game? – is a hot topic. In sport, as in other areas, more and more data are becoming available. The challenge now is to figure out how this data can be used and monetised effectively.
The practical nature of the event motivated the students to engage fully and go the extra mile. As a result, many great ideas were hatched and incredible prototypes developed in just four days. «That’s fantastic», says Ms Weber.

Fourth year of the Thinkathlon

This year marked the fourth edition of the MagglingenThinkathlon. An introduction to the topic was given on the first day of the event. The students then worked on developing solutions to a complex problem. After a progress presentation in the middle of the week, the best ideas were developed further and their implementation fleshed out.

The students used design thinking, following a step-by-step guide to bring structure to the problem-solving process. SFISM, BFH-TI and employees and developers at Dartfish supported them in a mentoring capacity throughout the process.