Chelsea and Feyenoord share STEM-knowledge in San Francisco

Chelsea and Feyenoord share STEM-knowledge in San Francisco

The EFDN-members Chelsea Foundation and Feyenoord Foundation are using their expertise to contribute to the development of STEM projects. Delegations from both clubs attended the Beyond Sport Conference in San Francisco, the Chelsea Foundation also organised an event together with the San Francisco 49ers. 

With the further development of the digital age, Science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) is an important part of current education. To equip children and young people with different academic disciplines interdisciplinary and applied approaches are used. The San Francisco 49ers, for example, decided to organise a mini-hackathon as the second event of the unique education partnership with Chelsea Foundation.  After the visit of a group from the NFL team at the Stamford Bridge earlier this year, the English delegation travelled to Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco on 25th  May. The hackathon was run by Chelsea Foundation head of education Matt Mead and his 49ers counterpart, Jesse Lovejoy.

Mead said: “It was an innovative and engaging day working with the students from Silicon Valley. This kind of hack programme and structure are not common within North American sports foundations, so it was excellent to showcase how we engage students in business and entrepreneurship in London at the Foundation and share with our US counterparts. In addition to working with the 49ers Foundation and the students, it was a real pleasure to meet and work with corporate volunteers from SAP, who spent the day supporting the groups and guiding them through the hack.”

The students of the 49ers STEM Leadership Institute were given four hours to come up with a way for the 49ers to attract a new audience. During the hackathon, they were tasked with fine-tuning their proposals and coming up with a one-page business plan. Most of the proposals were for apps, with points and incentives, and a strong social media component. Chelsea Foundation helped to choose a winner of the contest and hopes to extend the impact of partnership with the 49ers by working with SAP.

Feyenoord invited after experience with Virtual Reality Broadcasting

The event was a lead-in to the Beyond Innovation conference hosted by the 49ers and Beyond Sport. The conference itself focused on how sports can be used to support science, technology, engineering, and math education. On February 26th, 2017, the Virtual Camera of Beyond Sports experienced a world’s first on FOX Sports during the live broadcast of the football match Feyenoord Rotterdam – PSV Eindhoven. Virtual Reality (VR) was used so that viewers could virtually watch the game from angles that were impossible to render before. FOX Sports Eredivisie broadcasted the game on live TV and via streaming platform Twitch. During the post-match analysis, VR was used to create unique insights into real game situations. After this premiere, the Feyenoord Foundation was invited to the Beyond Innovation Conference at the Levi’s Stadium. The delegation was impressed about the 49ers’ work for the society and how sports are used in the US to make children enthusiastic for STEM education.