The 6th Asia Pacific Congress on Sports Technology has come to a close last month. I think many (well, at least all 6 of you who emailed me) has agreed that it was a great conference. For some, it might be the Chinese Junkboat ride that was the highlight, where you enjoyed the beautiful view of the city, the night lights and even the full moon (credit goes to our HK organisers); for others, it could be the some of the presentations that sparked something in your minds; or for some others, simply being in Hong Kong, meeting new people in the industry and forming new collaborations might be the focal point.

The keynote talks all came from recognised experts in their own specialisations – sports aerodynamics, biomechanics & orthopaedics, sports medicine and even sports tech commercialisation. On top of the eye-opening video footage on baseball pitching, there were insights into the performance of prostheses, an interesting new invention that prevents ankle sprains, and a tell-all on how to commercialise new sports technologies.

For the parallel sessions, although I only had the chance to sit down in a couple of sessions, I still caught some really good paper presentations. One of them was by Steffen Willwacher who won the adidas Young Investigator’s Award. The committee all agreed that his paper contained novelty and innovation in engineering, which is really what the conference as well as our sponsor, adidas, hope to promote. Some of the other award contenders that were also quite novel included topics on climbing, road cycling and motocross. Seeing these and all the other papers are just evidence that there is so much more possibilities and so much more to explore in this growing field.

So where is APCST 2015 going to be? The location and exact date has not been confirmed, but it will likely be between Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Whichever the case, the organising committee’s decision on the venue will definitely be one that adds value to the conference as well as to the sports tech community. Keep a lookout for updates!

Lastly, to see some of the conference photos, check out this Google+ community page.

Till then!