CXOs in Sports: Interview with Sujit Panigrahi, Founder and CEO, Fitness365

Sujit Panigrahi, Founder, Fitness365

Sportskeeda brings another exciting series of interviews – CXOs in Sports, where we speak to eminent and prominent personalities, talking about their sporting interests and ideas for development of sports in general and of their sports work/interest in particular.

Sujit Panigrahi is the Founder and CEO of Fitness 365. He has been prominently involved with trying to promote the culture of sports and fitness in schools in India, and has worked for the Commonwealth Games in 2010, and on designing sports graphics for prominent sporting events. We caught up with him recently and had a chat about the influence of technology on sports and his opinion on the current state and future of sports in India.

1. How and when did you develop an interest in sports? What sports do you play?

I was lucky to have studied in one of the 4 NCERT schools in the country – DM School, Bhubaneswar – where the focus on Sports was very high. We had large playing spaces, with exclusive playgrounds for Cricket, Football, Hockey, Tennis, Volleyball, Basketball and Kabaddi amongst others. Not to forget enough spaces for the entire school to be playing different modified sports at any point of time. I used to play Football and Cricket.

2. Name your favourite sportsperson, and one quality of his/ her personality that you admire.

Rahul Dravid - humble, selfless, honest and a an epitome of hard work – a gentleman in the true sense and a role model for thousands, including myself, and not because of his statistics, but because of his ethics and the way he approached challenges.

Apart from the 13000+ runs in Tests and almost 11000 runs in ODIs, his record catching tally was testimony to the amazing powers of concentration that he had. If you wanted to look at aggression on the field, it was in Rahul Dravid’s eyes.

He was honest about his own form, never found excuses for bad performances; was quick to praise those who deserved it, and tried to continously improve his game. Armed with his orthodox technique and powers of determination and commitment, he was the quintessential nice guy who finished first. He decided to retire because he did not want to block a youngster from coming into the side, and he felt that his time had come.

3. Fitness 365 has been involved in trying to emphasize the importance of fitness and cultivating a culture of sports among children in schools. Tell us more about your initiatives.

Fitness365 is India’s first Fitness Assessment, Intervention and Monitoring Program (A.I.M. for Good Fitness), which is designed to encourage children and young people to get active and stay active. We work closely with the schools and parents in implementing a scientifically designed structured Physical Education for making the children between age 3 and 18 (Pre-nursery to Class XII) fitter each year.

We are encouraging them to get the children to play for at least 60 minutes each day, during or after school hours. Fitness365 runs structured full year Physical Education Programs for children (called PEP365) during school hours, and specialised Sports programs after school hours. PEP365 program is an integral part of every child’s time table.

We are working towards strengthening the emphasis laid by national policies of education and sports in making fitness and sports an integral part of schools. We are determined to widen the concept of ‘Fitness and Sports for All’. Our objective is to develop sports-culture amongst school students to improve their fitness levels over a period of time through a series of round the year assessments, intervention and monitoring programs.

We help every child in identifying his/ her current level of fitness and helping him/ her to move to the next level of fitness. We are institutionalizing Reward and Recognition Programs at National and State levels to felicitate top talent, and move them to specific Sports Programs.

FICCI, in association with Fitness365, under the aegis of All India Council for Physical Education (AICPE) is building the National Fitness Index (NFI). NFI will serve as the benchmark for identifying the fittest children, fittest schools and fittest States in India. A battery of NFI fitness and sports skills related tests will be conducted in schools across the country.

Fitness365 is working closely with FICCI to popularise National Sports Day (29th August, Major Dhyan Chand’s Birthday) across Schools, Colleges, Universities and Corporates. A series of initiatives are being taken to get all Indians to play and be active. On a longer term, the idea is to build a sense of Fitness in individuals - children or grown-ups - to maintain their youthfulness through fitness and sports activities throughout their lives.

I am happy to share that we were featured amongst the Best 25 Sports Start-ups in India in the FICCI-Dextrasport-Report of 2013.

4. Could you tell us about the current targeted fitness programs that you are running/ plan to run? Also, how difficult is it to convince schools across the country to come on board?

The school leaders have started understanding the importance of having a balance between academics, sports and recreational activities. They understand that developing life skills using sports is of immense value. We help school leaders integrate physical activity into the school day to help kids learn, focus and grow.

When kids are physically active, they perform better academically, they have better attendance and their behavior improves. We are helping them to achieve School-wide change by doing 5 key things.

The Core Program, or the Physical Education Program (called PEP365) is structured during school hours, that include activities that are fun and inclusive, creating active classrooms, and improving the recess breaks in schools. Children are given structured learning and age-specific skill development in Gymnastics and Aerobics, Multiple Sports, Athletics, Health & Nutrition and Motor & Physical Fitness.

The objective is to help students be active and fit. We measure, track, and empower each student’s progress with health-related assessment, and inspire students to reach their full potential through awards and recognition. The Full year PEP365 is fully integrated into the school time table. The program has 3 components – Fitness and Sports Skills Assessment, Round the year Structured Intervention by trained PE staff and Monitoring of all activities, curriculum and benchmarks by Parents and Children.

Running specific Fitness and Sports programs after school hours: We encourage each child to play 60 minutes each day to stay active. The During School Hour PE classes are supplemented by Sports Programs before and after school hours. We also run specialised sports program in select schools after school hours.

As per current plans, we intend to develop 2 sports - Gymnastics and Badminton – in a focussed manner, and at a later date expand to other sports. We sponsored the first NCR Inter-school Gymanastic tournament last year.

Staff, Family & Community Engagement: Emphasize physical activity as a priority for the whole staff. Make your school the center for physical activity.

5. What has been your best sporting moment? (Please share any anecdote that comes to your mind)

My first personal best moment was Kapil Dev & team winning the final of the 1983 ICC Cricket World Cup played between India and West Indies at the Lord's Cricket Ground. That victory changed the sports landscape in India. Not only did cricket flourish in the country, it led to the development of Sports as a culture.

Parents were willing to get their children to go out and play sports. Sports became a serious career option for a lot of people. Everyone stood to gain – players, spectators, partnering companies and everyone in the sports eco-system.

The second highpoint in Indian Sports for me was Abhinav Bindra capturing the Gold Medal at 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Abhinav’s victory was India's first gold medal since 1980, when the Indian men’s Field Hockey team won the gold. He also became the first and only Indian to have held both the World and Olympic titles at the same time, after having won the gold at the 2006 ISSF World Shooting Championships.

It is only when someone gets Gold that the National Anthem gets played during the presentation ceremony at the Olympics - Abhinav Bindra’s gold brought us that honour. It was one proud moment for all of us.

6. You were the Head of Technology at the Commonwealth Games, Delhi 2010. Describe to us your experience and the focus of your work there.

My team and I were responsible for planning, designing, commissioning, operations and decommissioning of a fully-integrated Multi-sport, Multi-venue Technology infrastructure at all competition venues, training venues, Games family village, International broadcasting center, main Press center, Technology operations center and other venues to support the conduct of the games and to deliver results from each of the 23 venues to the world.

7. Your first professional experience was designing TV graphics for sports broadcasts; probably part of the initial foray made by technology into Sports. How was your experience working in that industry?

I would say that I was fortunate to start my career with AmSoft Systems, which had done TV Graphics for the Barcelona Olympics 1992, in collaboration with PESA Systems, Spain, which was reused at Atlanta Olympics 1996 and Sydney Olympics 2000.

I worked with ESPN Star Sports, NDTV, DD and Zee TV in developing TV Graphics for delivering TV Graphics and Real-time Results Systems and Services for Sports and Parliamentary Elections. I used to sketch and paint and so I ended up doing lot of work related to Graphics at AmSoft Systems. I assume Mr. Ajay Madhok, who heads AmSoft, probably had lot of faith in me, and ended up assigning most technology projects related to multimedia graphics and broadcast.

Way back in late 90s, NDTV and Synergy Communications were clearly pioneers when it came to quality of Broadcast Graphics and Real-time results. What helped was working on projects for professional organisations like NDTV, Synergy Communications and ESPN on Real-time TV graphics. There was creativity and flexibility to try out new stuff, and the equipments and software used were also ahead of the curve.

I did not know that the experience of TV Graphics and Sports Technology - will one day lead to something like this. I got an opportunity to work with CWG Delhi 2010 as the Head of Technology. Post that, I now work closely with the Schools, Sports Academies, corporates who have a deep interest in Sports and Industry bodies like FICCI.

8. Throughout your professional career, there has been an inherent connection between sports and technology. Was it always a conscious attempt on your part to ensure the same?

I would say initially it was not planned that way. But, different opportunities came along the way in form of TV Graphics in early years, core Sports Technology for a major event i.e. CWG Delhi 2010 and now Fitness and Sports programs for Schools. I would say that over the last 8 years, I have consciously made an attempt to make Sports and Technology related to Sports as an integral part of what I do.

Also, I have been lucky to have gone to college at a place like BITS, Pilani, where there is a lot of encouragement for people to get involved in extra-curricular activities beyond the scope of regular education, and the fact that it helped drive my interest in graphics and technology related to sports.

9. What do you think of the future of sports in India?

The future of Sports in India is very promising. Post CWG Delhi 2010, the focus has shifted from only cricket to other Olympic sports. One of the recent indian stories of the Olympic Games was Mary Kom. She was the face that her sport used to get women’s boxing into the Olympic agenda. Mary Kom was resilient enough to fight in a higher category.

Similarly, we have India's medal winners at London 2012 in Sushil Kumar (Silver, Wrestling), Vijay Kumar (Silver, Shooting), MC Mary Kom (Bronze, Boxing), Yogeshwar Dutt (Bronze, Wrestling), Saina Nehwal (Bronze, Badminton), and Gagan Narang (Bronze, Shooting).

We did well in claiming six medals in London. We saw the tri-colour being unfurled on these occasions. But nothing beats the joy of hearing one's national anthem being played out at the Olympic Games when someone wins the Gold medal. In Rio 2016, I long to hear the National Anthem once again (after Abhinav Bindra’s Gold in Beijing Olympics). We will see the U-17 Football World Cup being hosted in India, which is a major achievement for the country.

The target for Olympics 2020 should be to win 20 medals and finish in the Top 20 on the Medals table at the Olympic Games (as per how the International Olympic Committee calculates the table, not the US).

Strategy 1 should be to focus on creating Centers of Excellence in a few sports that India is relatively good at, which offer a large haul of medals, and have relatively less competition.

Strategy 2 should be to attempt to raise multiple world-class athletes in the chosen sports and disciplines. An athlete needs to be challenged, at home by others of similar caliber and ambition. Saina Nehwal (Bronze medalist in the Women’s Singles Badminton discipline) was the only Indian in the fray compared to three players from China, all of who could have finished 1st.

Having multiple real contenders increases the chances of winning medals and is the real test of a sporting center of excellence. Countries that were at the top of the table in London have also built their success around dominance in specific sports.

10. What do you think of the future of sports technology by 2020?

Athletes will train smarter. You will see technology being used to gather increased performance data to spot patterns and identify signs of improvement, weaknesses or even potential injury. You will see advancements by virtue of which athletes will get a chance to change tactics in-flight and take the winning position. As smart clothing becomes ubiquitous, athletes will be able to make use of real-time information available to them and their coaches.

Players will get spotted by talent scouts or secure more lucrative sponsorship deals –analysis of what their fan base is saying on social media will help to identify up and coming stars. Viewers at home will be able to watch the action through the eyes of the athlete. The new spectator will be his or her own director and will choose which part of the action they want to watch.

They will be able to get the full story on the screen in front of them. Watching the 100 m final, you will see a speedometer showing how fast the athletes are running, or take on sporting heroes while watching them compete. Fans will have the power to step virtually onto the pitch, as live footage and gaming merge into one. Fans in the stadium will be more involved in the action. Whoever is running the event will be able to feed the live audience information that they may not want to put over a public network.

The audience can get a front row view from every seat, with a second screen that can switch view to pitch side from wherever they are in the stadium. You can use your smart phone to order and pay for your popcorn or event merchandise, and share your experience in real-time with all your friends and family. The cloud will allow the almost instant uploading and downloading of data

11. A message or quote that you’d like to share with our readers

Give each child at least one Sport for life. Whatever game they choose, they must play it for life. We don't stop playing when we grow old, we grow old when we stop playing.