There are an increasing number of ways that sport for development practitioners and organisations can incorporate AI to optimise and maximise their operations and programme impact. As AI technology becomes cheaper and more accessible, it will enable more organisations to access otherwise expensive and time-consuming sophisticated tools and insights. As such, we can expect AI to level the playing field for smaller organisations or those with limited resources, ensuring that they operate on par with larger entities.
From an operational perspective, AI can support data-driven decision-making thanks to AI’s ability to analyse vast amounts of information, such as participant engagement, program outcomes, and financial performance. Similarly, AI can automate routine administrative tasks that can then free up staff to focus on other tasks.
From a programmes perspective, AI tools can support personalised education and training programmes that are tailored to the specific needs of individuals or groups. They can also support with the development of scalable curriculum content that can be adapted to different cultural contexts or age groups.
Data is central to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). This presents the possibility of AI streamlining M&E processes by analysing data and providing real-time feedback that enables programmes teams to make adjustments. Additionally, there is the potential to use predictive analytics to anticipate programme outcomes based on historical data, allowing organisations to adjust their work proactively.
Sport for development aims to be intentionally inclusive and accessible. AI can further facilitate this by offering translation or accessibility tools that can break down language barriers, making programmes more inclusive for non-native speakers or individuals with disabilities.
There are several exciting use-cases that are catching momentum:
- Specialists for curriculum development, fundraising, etc
Every organisation will have its own AI platform wherein they can train their own set of “AI Agents” based on their own internal materials, manuals, and documents. AI Agent can be trained for a specific function. For example, it is possible to ask an AI agent to develop a life skills curriculum, which will offer tailored content based on specific prompts it receives.
- Scalable and personalised education
Digital avatars will be the future of website/phone interactivity. They are programmed models that use a combination of speech-to-text, large language models, and text-to-speech tools to enable a human to have an interactive conversation with a digital avatar.
The language, look, and attitude of digital avatars can all be coded to suit the organisation’s communication objectives for its community/users. Furthermore, organisations can input the desired information into the “brain” of the digital avatar. There is vast potential for organisations to use digital avatars for personalised engagement and education among target audiences in sport for development.
- Creating positive online communities
Sport for development organisations can deploy an AI tool to eliminate online spam, abuse, and discrimination from their online forums and social media channels. This is especially important given that sportswomen face on average three times more abuse than their male counterparts. It is proven that less online abuse creates positive and interactive online communities. This equates to a better experience for users, but also improves commercial opportunities from sponsors.
Credits
This website section was developed in partnership with READY.
