On 27 and 28 February, as part of the Mobile World Congress, the Barça Innovation Hub and GSMA are promoting the traditional sports innovation congress.
The 2023 edition, which is being held at the Feria Gran Vía exhibition centre, carries the slogan ‘The Minds Behind The Game’, as this year’s congress seeks to delve deeper, discussing the role of the brain in sports performance, and the new cognitive applications related to artificial intelligence and the sports sector.
Monday 27 February
Rally driver Albert Llovera will be kicking things off with a session on managing success and failure. He’ll be followed by FC Barcelona first team hockey psychologist, Laura Sánchez, and coach Edu Castro, with a talk on psychology and high performance, preparing the ground for Bojan Krkic, who will be leading a session on managing emotions in elite football.
NASA engineers Howard Hu and Carlos Garcia will also be discussing the aeronautical agency’s track record in terms of human performance and artificial intelligence. The morning will conclude with a session focused on food and service, led by FC Barcelona nutritionists Toña Lizarraga and Mireia Porta.
In the afternoon, the second block will begin with a series of talks on medicine, neuroscience, brain damage, and the neurodegenerative diseases linked to football. Day one will close with a talk by first team basketball player Cory Higgins on mental preparation in elite basketball and the second Allianz Startup Challenge, which rewards innovative and disruptive proposals that have a positive impact on the world of sport.
Tuesday 28 February
The main topic on Tuesday will once again be artificial intelligence, although this time it will be linked to virtual reality. Different international speakers, such as former Liverpool CEO Peter More, television producer Amani Martin, and American influencer Joe Pompliano will be looking at the subject from different angles – the metaverse, sports storytelling and new communication formats respectively. At 12.30 pm, the president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, will bring this year’s edition to a close.