SportKompas for Kids (SPOKI) - ERASMUS+ project

SportaMundi has coordinated an ERASMUS+ project to implement SportKompas in 3 cities in Europe: Tampere (Finland), Cuneo (Italy) and Valencia (Spain) together with 5 partners: Varala Institute (Finland), ANCI Piemonte (Italy), European University of Valencia (Spain), Cluster Sports & Technology (the Netherlands) and EPSI (Belgium).

On the picture (left to right): Manuela Dutto (City of Cuneo), Ursula Haapanen (Varala Institute), Joni Harjula (Varala Institute), Gennaro Boccia (University of Turin, Unito), Rene Wijlens (Cluster Sports & Technology), Elena Ciarlo (ANCI Piemonte), Ilse van der heijde (Cluster Sports & Technology), Javier Gámez (Universidad Europea Valencia), Fernando Domínguez (Universidad Europea Valencia), Jose Pérez (Universidad Europea Valencia), Pieter Van Steenkiste (SportaMundi/Hylyght/Ghent University), Bruno D’Hulster (SportaMundi).

SportKompas Training

On the 31st of January 2024, the 6 partner organizations of the SPOKI EU+ project (SportaMundi, ANCI Piemonte, Varala Institute, Universidad Europea Valencia, Cluster Sports & Technology, EPSI) gathered in Ghent for a 3-day intensive SportKompas training. The meetup also marked the kickoff of our 2-year project.

This training was an important milestone to get everyone familiar with SportKompas and to explain how to organize a SportKompas event in the 3 different cities: Tampere, Cuneo and Valencia.

SportKompas Theoretical training

• Scientific background
• I LIKE module
• I DO module
• Sports Planets website

SportKompas practical training

• Digital platform SportKompas
• Test equipment
• Demonstration of protocols
• Testing each other
• Hylyght Digital platform - extra features
• I AM module
• Implementation options
• Communication plan
• What's next & Round up

Pieter Van Steenkiste from SportaMundi explains how to take the SportKompas I DO physical tests.

SportKompas Implementation

The 3 implementation partners of this project (Varala Institute, ANCI Piemonte, European University Valencia) organized 2 pilots with 20 and 200 children from primary schools in their cities, in close collaboration with the city council and the school teachers.

All participating children received a personalized SportKompas report in their foreign language with the 7 sports that best fits to their skills and motivation.

As part of the sports orientation, a web site "Sport Planets" has been setup locally by the 3 partners to link the sports of the SportKompas reports to sports clubs in their neighbourhood.

![a web site "Sport Planets"](image010.png "a web site "Sport Planets"")

During the project a study has been setup to evaluate technologies to capture the physical exercises for faster and more accurate test result registration and reduce the labour work of the test leaders. This resulted in 3 devices to replace the manual testing: weight, length and jumping sideways.

Project Results

With this project we introduced a new and innovative method ‘SportKompas” in 3 countries in Europe. All partners have learned about the scientific background and experienced the practical organization of SportKompas with schools and children in their country.

Each partner has the knowledge and capacity to continue and expand SportKompas to reach more children, schools and cities. With SportKompas each country can activate more children to sports, lower the drop-out in sports clubs, increase the movement skills of children in schools and overall make an impact on health and well-being for their young population.

We can conclude that this project succeeded to leverage SportKompas, as a proven method from Flanders, and to introduce SportKompas in 3 countries in Europe to make an impact on sports orientation, long term sports participation and improving movement skills of children.

The project contributed to the European priorities:

Priority: 2 - A Europe fit for the digital age Domain: D-2-2 - Empowering people through education and skills Policy area: P-2-5 - The right environment for digital networks and services

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.