AthletePro - Empowering the next generation of champions; parents first approach!

Imagine you are a parent and want to ensure your child has the right set of guidance to explore different sports and choose any to specialize in. You dream of seeing your child compete in the Olympics in 15 years! The question is where to start!

In today’s day and age, there is hardly any platform where parents can get guidance to ensure their children are equipped to pick up any sports and get better at it. Be it recreational or professional, we don’t see this often. Moreover, we have seen athletes drop out of their game because of a lack of training and guidance. The cost involved and the difficulty in finding the best trainers in their localities further complicate the situation.

We, team Ready Player Three, wanted to address this problem in this year's MonstarHacks. Let us tell you readers how to approach the hackathon problem and how we tried to solve the issue.

![AI Generated Image](/assets/img/articles/2024-05-23-AthletePro-Empowering-the-next-generation-of-champions/abstract-intro.webp

MonstarHacks partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS), to provide our teams with challenges in 3 solution areas: Fan360, Performance Analytics, and Smart Venues. Our team made out of Saad Bin Amjad, Tanveer Hassan, and Faisal Islam, choose the Performance Analytics ("Athlete View") category aiming to help athletes and their families navigate their sports journey more effectively. Leveraging AWS technology, especially Generative AI, we aimed to build a solution that would make a tangible difference in the sports world.

We named our application AthletePro, which plans to revolutionize the sports industry with an AI-driven platform that provides hyper-personalized roadmaps for athletes and parents from recreational to elite levels, empowering the next inclusive generation of champions.

Solution Overview

AthletePro offers a comprehensive solution to empower athletes and their families. Even before signing up for the platform, parents are given a tour of the app features and what it can offer them and their children in terms of sports. This includes sneak peeks at coaches, trainers, events, and the financial aspects involved in getting the athletes up to speed. There are curated FAQs that enable parents to make the right call in terms of exploration or being onboarded to the application.

Then we ensure that parents can sign up easily. We first focused on Personalized Onboarding. This feature enables parents to create profiles for themselves and their children by answering a series of questions. The questions range from their location, age, sports they want to explore, end goals if any, and budget. This helps the application tailor recommendations accordingly, as this information becomes part of the knowledge base going forward.

Parents of special needs children can provide additional information to receive more personalized recommendations.

Similar to other ed-tech platforms but specifically for sports, we showcase tailored lessons and suggest sporting activities. To support this feature, we introduced the onboarding of coaches, trainers, and organizers into our CMS-styled platform powered by Strapi. We ensure it is easily accessible, allowing users to enter the system with their certifications and facilities, which will also become part of the knowledge base going forward.

Businesses in the sports industry, such as gyms, training facilities, and equipment suppliers, can easily connect with athletes and parents through AthletePro. The bigger plan for this feature is that when governments, sports organizations, and universities are onboarded, they can sponsor athletes and their families so they can pursue their sporting journey.

Additionally, we understand that when AI generates any roadmap for vulnerable groups in society, such as children, there should be accountability and transparency. It is crucial that we provide accurate roadmaps. Therefore, we have proposed and showcased a notification system for connected coaches and trainers to first approve the content before presenting the roadmap to parents or children.

We also recognize that not everything can be taught or practiced indoors. The courses are designed so that AthletePro provides exclusive content and perks unlocked at specific stadiums or training facilities, enhancing engagement. This means the application can detect your location and then unlock the corresponding training guidance or instructions.

We understand that not everything can be taught or practiced indoors. So the courses are designed so that AthletePro provides exclusive content and perks unlocked at specific stadiums or training facilities, enhancing engagement. This means the application can detect your location and then unlock the corresponding training guidance or instructions.

![Mock Design](/assets/img/articles/2024-05-23-AthletePro-Empowering-the-next-generation-of-champions/athele-pro-trainer.webp

Target Users and Revenue Model

AthletePro caters to a diverse range of users across the sports ecosystem, including athletes, parents/guardians, coaches/trainers, government sports agencies, universities and colleges, and local businesses.

![Revenue Generation](/assets/img/articles/2024-05-23-AthletePro-Empowering-the-next-generation-of-champions/business.webp

To address the needs of these diverse stakeholders, we have developed a solid revenue model for the app based on subscription-based revenue, partnerships, and sponsorships. Additionally, we engage in ethical data monetization through partnerships with research institutions, sports analytics firms, and market research companies. We believe AthletePro has the potential to expand into new markets domestically and internationally by adapting its platform to cater to different sports, cultures, and regions.

Engineering Approach: Seamlessly Integrating the RAG Framework for Contextual Guidance

We emphasized heavily how easy this app should be for parents and athletes alike. We understand that with any GenAI-backed application, most of the time, we resort to chatbots. However, chatbots won't work here, as not everyone is suited to ask the right questions at the right time. Instead, we've innovatively integrated the RAG framework into the app's architecture, embedding contextual guidance seamlessly within the app journey itself. This user-centric approach not only enhances the overall user experience but also reinforces AthletePro's commitment to accessibility and inclusivity in sports technology.

Leveraging the retrieved data from the knowledge bank, AthletePro dynamically generates system messages that resonate with the user's current context and stage in their athletic journey. These messages are strategically woven into the app journey, serving as subtle cues that guide users towards relevant actions and decisions without overwhelming them with explicit prompts or queries.

The final piece of the puzzle involves generating prompts and recommendations based on the contextual cues provided by the system messages. AthletePro's backend formulates queries for our language model systems (LLMs), such as Anthropic's Claude in Amazon Bedrock, drawing upon the user's profile, preferences, and journey stage. These queries are designed to extract actionable insights and deliver tailored guidance that aligns with the user's unique circumstances.

![AI Flow](/assets/img/articles/2024-05-23-AthletePro-Empowering-the-next-generation-of-champions/ai-flow.webp

Core Technologies

• Strapi CMS
• Amazon Bedrock
• Amazon EC2
• Amazon S3
• Amazon RDS
• Docker
• Github
• Prototyping Tools

RAG Framework Utilization

![User Flow](/assets/img/articles/2024-05-23-AthletePro-Empowering-the-next-generation-of-champions/user-flow.webp

In the user flow diagram, the process begins with Sarah and her mother signing up for AthletePro. Sarah shares her interest in volleyball along with her preferences and any constraints. AthletePro’s system then uses this information to create a personalized roadmap recommendation. This recommendation is sent to local trainers, who review and adjust it as needed before returning it to Sarah’s mother, completing the feedback loop. This user flow demonstrates how AthletePro seamlessly integrates user data, AI-generated recommendations, and real-time communication through its backend architecture.

Challenges Faced

One significant challenge we encountered during the hackathon was defining the scope of our idea. AthletePro had the potential to benefit various stakeholders, including athletes, parents, coaches, government agencies, and businesses. We wanted to showcase the platform's capabilities while ensuring clarity and focus. Ultimately, we decided to center our solution around the role of parents, recognizing their pivotal role in supporting young athletes.

To overcome this challenge, we proactively engaged with parents, conducting interviews to gain insights into their perspectives, motivations, and pain points regarding their children's athletic pursuits. By listening to their experiences, we were able to refine our solution and tailor it to address the specific needs of parents navigating their children's sports journey.

Additionally, we faced difficulties in accessing Anthropic's Claude2 model, a crucial subscription service, due to a waiting period and regional restrictions. To mitigate this issue, we improvised by using Amazon's Titan instead of our own knowledge base of parents and athletes. AWS Bedrock only supports Anthropic's models for using knowledge bases for now. Although we set it up, we could not test it due to this limitation.

Conclusion

AthletePro represents a groundbreaking innovation in the sports industry, offering personalized guidance, resources, and support to athletes and parents of all backgrounds and abilities. By leveraging technology and a commitment to inclusivity, AthletePro aims to empower athletes to reach their full potential and foster a more vibrant sports community. As we continue to iterate and expand our platform, we look forward to revolutionizing the sports industry and creating a brighter future for athletes everywhere.

Article Photo by Seth Kane