In the ultra-competitive world of sports, teams are always looking for that edge, however miniscule it may be because it makes a world of difference in the final result. For some, that may be in the form of new and revolutionary training methods, for others it may be the use of technology through data driven analysis and tracking player performance.
Let’s delve into a platform that is giving cricket clubs and academies that ‘edge’ by learning about Ludimos from its Founder and CEO, Mr. Madan Raj Rajagopal. In this exclusive interview with SPOGO, he spoke about what inspired him to create this platform, it’s features, impact, expanding to other sports and future goals.
Q 1) As founder of Ludimos, what inspired you to create a video analysis platform for cricket coaches?
I think in 2018, there were a couple of events that inspired me to pursue this journey. Firstly, being a cricketer myself, I played for a local club here and when my performance was poor, we went back to basics and used video analysis to help me out as a player. While I was consuming the technology, it wasn't that effective because of so many other things that come with the analysis and I saw a huge gap that exists between the current technology and what's actually needed by a coach or a player and that inspired me to basically explore this further and then come up with the idea of Ludimos, where we want to built the most efficient video analysis platform in the world that is powered by AI.
Q 2) What sets Ludimos apart from other similar platforms? What are some of the features cricket clubs and academies can benefit from by using Ludimos?
Cricket takes time, when you train it takes time, when you bat it takes time. One of the biggest problems coaches face right now is that they need more time to review data and since the game has evolved a lot, at the highest level everything is driven by data and insight. They have analysts who give minute information like where they can improve their skills and a lot more. That trend however has not caught up within the grassroot development area. It's primarily because data is useful but capturing, maintaining and analysing such a huge amount of data is difficult. That's where our key and unique selling point comes in, which is Ludimos AI. Whenever a player or coach captures a training footage of a session or a player, our AI automatically analyses the video and it first creates highlights. Highlights are just the actions of the players playing a shot or a bowler bowling a ball and it makes small snippets of each shot of three seconds automatically. This feature alone saves 80% of the video analysis time for coaches, which if you add up on a monthly basis we save about two hours of coaching and analysis time for every coach on pure video analysis alone.
It's not the time saving aspect but what enables it is that coaches can now observe four to five times more data points of the same player at the same time which means they can identify mistakes sooner and assist the players much faster, which accelerates the player development process as whole. With this particular feature, several clubs, academies and even schools across the world trust Ludimos and use it to document a players journey over a period of time to compare how a player evolved from point A to point B and also see which drills were effective in shaping up a players skills over a period of time. In addition to this, we also have a smart feedback and notes taking system, where coaches can either using their voice as voice notes can leave a feedback as a text note or a drawing and in this way, coaches can dissect the areas of improvement or areas of a player in a more minute detailed manner and share that with the player within the platform without the need to use any other tool like whatsapp, email or other channels making it seamless and simple to use.
Q 3) Who are some of the cricket clubs and academies that are currently using Ludimos? How much of an impact has the platform made so far?
We have more than a hundred clubs, academies and schools registered across the globe hence naming a few doesn't make sense. We have clubs from the States, Ireland, Scotland, UK and a few other countries in Europe. We are also present in academies in India and Australia who are clients with Ludimos and the key benefit that they receive is basically documenting the player's journey over a period of time. These coaches want their players to improve and understand what's going right and what's going wrong and act upon a personalized plan. There are other platforms out there which you have to do a lot of manual work to get this but because we make it so simple for a coach and player to get in touch and communicate and get the right feedback going on, that's the actual benefit that we bring in. In addition to that, coaches get more data points and it means that they can observe things that one would typically miss in a coaching session or a group session but because everything is documented, you don't have to remember everything all the time so you can always go back into the point of time see what and why it happened which means that players are not under this trend where typically, a coach explains something verbally and that information is forgotten in a few days and weeks time and the coach has to repeat the same thing over and over again. With Ludimos, because the information is documented and is present all the time, coaches and players can always go back in time, take a look at what happened and at the same time work on it which helps them develop faster and that's the benefits these academies have had so far using the Ludimos.
Q 4) As there are many countries such as Serbia, Argentina, Germany and Netherlands that are using Ludimos, do you believe it will help these countries catch up to other countries such as India or Australia quicker?
It’s a tricky question to answer. In a way yes, if you look at the journey of any developing nation it always comes from the talent itself. Talent is what empowers a country to be effective at such a high level. Countries like Netherlands, Scotland and Ireland all have such a good pathway system where they can have a pool of talent and new players coming in and from there you train them, groom them and pick the right ones and nurture them. Then they go on to play for a national team. It takes a certain amount of time and effort to do that. What Ludimos is trying to do is to assist these coaches and players in such a way that it takes away a lot of the manual effort and replaces it with smartness. That would also encourage the players to enjoy Ludimos.
One of the key troubles with other countries’ players is that they start to drop off after certain years. They stop playing cricket or they choose a different sport like football or hockey. What it usually comes down to is that they either lose interest or there is only so much progress you can make with such a sport. Our solution to that is that we give them a new way of learning cricket which is fun and interactive where they can also track their progress over time with data driven facts and insights. Beyond that we give access to coaches that they otherwise don't have access to.
Ludimos is a digital platform so you can log in from anywhere in the world and connect with any coach in the world that you would like to learn from. Then you can improve your game up to the limit of your choosing. If you do that on a massive scale, then the talent pool is bound to grow. Once that pool grows, with the amount of interest that people have, competitiveness grows. Then, the countries themselves will have better players to compete against higher level cricket teams, the answer to your question is yes. It will take some time but we are assisting them to make it happen in a smart and simple way to reach there.
Q 5) Would you ever consider expanding Ludimos to other sports as well? If yes, which other sports would be considered first?
The short answer is yes. The technology stack that we have developed is compatible with other sports. Our ideal choice is tennis, baseball, golf and hockey. However cricket is such a complex game and it requires so many different types of analysis and insights which is why we will be busy for the next few years working on cricket and if the opportunity arrives then we would venture into tennis, baseball, golf and hockey.
Q 6) What are your goals for Ludimos in the future? How would you like to achieve them?
My vision for the future is that whenever a player thinks about cricket, they think about a bat, a ball and other equipment and Ludimos will be a part of their cricketing journey. We envision Ludimos to play an active role in developing the game at the grassroot level and enabling participation.
There are multiple strategies to achieve that, but one of the key areas where we need help right now is brand ambassadors. At present we are looking for talented players and innovative coaches, or coaches that are looking for a competitive edge to start using our platform. People that would help spread the word and advocate our technology across the sports space. That would help a lot to get our name out in the cricketing fraternity and for them to believe that we are helping both players and coaches be effective and impactful.
That’s really all from the marketing point of view and from a technological point of view we are investing a lot in our innovation department. We are exploring several new and cutting edge technologies in order to promote deep learning. All this extracts information from videos alone so that you don't have to buy any separate sensors, which may be expensive or not available in some countries. However, if you have a smartphone or a computer, our technology will capture and deliver insides that can be computed just from video frames. There are two key areas we are investing in to make our vision a reality, marketing and technology.
