Sports meets held ever so often by schools, colleges and even firms, which otherwise go unrecorded (discounting internal newsletters), will soon be documented and maybe even analysed. That is, if the newest incubatee, Gamatics India, at the N.S. Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning in the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru, has its way.
Besides documenting sports events, Gamatics India aims to equip the Indian sports sector with the best gear, analytics solutions and a platform to engage with each other in different ways. Paralympian Sharath Gayakwad is part of its founding team.
It all started when e-commerce entrepreneur Santosh Patil and Shantala Bhat, an IIMB alumna, also founding members, realised the challenges in training a budding athlete — in this case their son, swimmer Utkarsh Patil (10).
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“We used to go from Whitefield to Jayanagar, where our son was training, and gradually realised the missing links. It was difficult to find performing gear. There was no framework to track the progress of the athlete or injuries. There was no structure in maintaining data,” recalled Mr. Patil.
This experience made them build a team, which now includes a sports nutritionist. Though they started with a focus on swimming (they registered as a company in November 2014 and were incubated in NSRCEL this February), they intend to spread out.
The e-commerce venture is now fully operational with Gamatics acting as the aggregator between international brands and local dealers for sporting gear and devices not easily found in India. Next on the cards is distributing their software for free to schools, colleges and institutions and organisations.
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“Using the sports analytics system, they can register students/participants. Whenever there are sports meets, results can be mapped, like it is done for academics. It will be easier for coaches to pick brighter talents. In a year or two, the selection process will become easier and more transparent,” he said.