Artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic, with tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 making headlines. Many of these stories reflect fears that robotic machine-learning algorithms will replace humans in jobs and artistic endeavors. But a startup called TeamSportz is using AI for a decidedly people-forward purpose: helping athletes improve their performance.
The UK-based TeamSportz is a Black-owned startup created in 2021 by founder and CEO Francisco Baptista, a software engineer with more than 20 years of experience. Baptista discussed his vision for the company with Dan Kihanya of the Founders Unfound podcast, which spotlights founders from underrepresented communities.
Born in Angola, Baptista grew up during the chaos of the bloody Angolan Civil War before eventually moving to Brazil to study as a teenager. From Brazil, his next stops were Portugal, where he began his career as a software developer, and then the UK, where he learned to speak English. Throughout all the tumult, he was comforted by his greatest passion: basketball.
"I learned to play basketball because my mom used to play basketball," Baptista explains. "All the trouble that I could get into, I didn't, because I was always keen to stay a little longer in a basketball court...or run away from school and play a little longer instead of going back into class. So a blessing and a curse."
It was his love of basketball—and other team sports—that inspired Baptista to create a platform that could provide individual athletes, teams, and coaches with analytics and insights to help them improve their training regimens.
AI for Athletes, Teams, and Coaches
The TeamSportz platform comprises two components. The first is a mobile app for Android and iOS that lets athletes use their phones' cameras to monitor their exercise routines. The app uses an aspect of AI known as computer vision to analyze their workouts to ensure they're doing their motions in correct form, based on TeamSportz's own library of conditioning exercises. It can also provide statistics on many factors, including the number of sessions, number of reps, accuracy, speed, reaction time, and duration.
The second component is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) portal for team coaches. Once a coach signs up for the service, they have instant access to their players' stats as soon as they upload them from the mobile app. From the portal, coaches can evaluate their players and see various metrics, such as how often they’ve trained, and their speed, duration, activity level, and form. They can also upload video recordings of their games to the platform, and use online tools to analyze and annotate the footage.
But not everything has been smooth sailing for Baptista in founding TeamSportz. In particular, he's been challenged by the reality that it's far more difficult for founders from underrepresented communities to secure funding and other resources.
"I've been acutely aware that I'm Black since I started TeamSportz," Baptista says. "Literally everything else sort of reminds you what you're against. That is a big mountain that you are against, and you have to climb it...I would say that is a long way to go for the market to provide the same opportunities to Black founders."
You can listen to Baptista's full interview with Dan Kihanya on the Founders Unfound podcast. You'll hear more about how he conceived of and built TeamSportz, as well as tales of his struggles and achievements along his journey across three countries and three continents.
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