Who is Charlotte #

As doctor in sport sociology, Charlotte Van Tuyckom has a profound interest in the sociological and policy components of sport. She shares her passion for research and science communication in e.g. blogs and podcasts. Professionally she is affiliated as a researcher and project manager with the department of Sport and movement sciences at Howest University College (Bruges, Belgium) and the Sports Innovation Campus (collaboration between Howest and Sport Vlaanderen, see www.sportinnovatiecampus.be ). Her research interests include the impact of digital innovation on the field of sport. In her latest research, she and her colleagues take a closer look at Generation Z (see www.fitfluencers.eu and www.genzlab.be). Charlotte is also member of the Flemish Sports Council, the advisory board of the minister of sport, and is Guest Professor in Sport Sociology at Lunex University (Luxembourg).

The Sports Innovation Campus #

For the past five years, The Sports Innovation Campus in Bruges (a collaboration between Howest School of Applied Sciences and Sport Vlaanderen, the flemish sports administration) has been hosting a living lab for sports and exercise in Flanders within 4 domains: exergaming & gamification, digital coaching & testing, new sports, and active design. Innovation is used as a means to stimulate as many target groups as possible into sports. Students and project staff with expertise in game development, product design, IoT, creative technologies and movement and health sciences work together intensively. In this way, many innovative concepts, ideas and prototypes are developed - often at the request of the sports sector or technology companies -. In addition to developing and implementing our own exergames, the Sportinnovatiecampus also purchases commercial exercise games to test them in different contexts and with different target groups.

In 2021, Howest & Sport Vlaanderen went a step further by investing together in a brand new Sportscube for Active Gaming (see 🎞️ below), a kind of sports hall where everyone is welcome to experience different exergames (in school context, birthday parties, with friends, with family, …). While not named that way by Howest or Sport Vlaanderen, many sports games in at the Sports Innovation Campus are well in line with the definition of virtual sports and could act as true virtual sports playground for research and development 😎.