The People Behind the Tech Podcast: Brian Cunniffe - UK Sports Institute

“How do we design tech and tech solutions to almost combat [other] tech solutions and distractions?”

The question is posed by Brian Cunniffe of the UK Sports Institute [UKSI], who is Joe Lemire and John Portch’s first guest on The People Behind the Tech podcast for 2024.

Brian, a performance lead at the UKSI who works primarily in canoeing and who also served as the British and Irish Lions’ sports scientist on tours of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, is discussing the power in gamifying training, particularly for younger athletes.

“There’s a slight irony in there but how do we bring it back to the stuff that matters, not just for players but for staff as well?” he continues.

“How do we help coaches on a journey to understand not just the stuff that players have completed but maybe some of the decisions that we need to take on a journey and learn from that so that we’re not replicating or duplicating and can be more efficient with our time?”

Elsewhere, Brian delves into:

• The reasons why he is not driven to be a domain expert [6:00];
• The mismatch of the tacit knowledge of coaching and the newer objective of monitoring athletes [13:00];
• The under-appreciated importance of design thinking and bringing people on a journey [18:00];
• The performance promise contained in epigenetics [31:00].

Joe Lemire LinkedIn | X

John Portch LinkedIn | X

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