Harvard invite Josep Maria Bartomeu to explain Barça's social commitment

FC Barcelona President, Josep Maria Bartomeu, to travel to the United States on Thursday to participate in a conference at the prestigious Harvard University on the subject of Participation, Inclusion and Social Responsibility in Global Sports. The university is organising the conference with Simmons College, a reputable private university and postgraduate school in Boston on 1 and 2 June.

The blaugrana President will explain how Barça contributes to the improvement of society through the positive impact of sport in projects such as Barça Innovation Hub, the Masia or the Foundation. These are some of the reasons why Barça is more than a club. This model makes FC Barcelona a special Club with a culture of excellence looking to improve both the sporting and corporate side of the institution within the demanding and competitive environment that is football in the 21st century.

During the visit to Boston, the President will also visit MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the prestigious institution and North American university dedicated to research and investigation who are working with the Barça Innovation Hub, which brings together the Club’s research, innovation and education projects.

Bartomeu’s day in Boston will start at the Harvard University’s Loeb House, which is the old residence of Harvard’s Presidents. From there, the Club’s President will visit the Campus and will then return to the house for a dinner to mark the beginning of the two-day conference jointly organised by Harvard University and Simmons College. He will speak to an audience made up of important figures in the worlds of sports, academia, business, and journalism.

It is not the first time Josep Maria Bartomeu has collaborated with Harvard University. In 2015, he contributed to an MBA class at Harvard Business School via videoconference from the Camp Nou. The Club was used as a successful example of a combination of global reach and global roots. The example of Barça was presented to students for the first time as part of the Creative Industries subject taught by Anita Elberse, expert in sport and entertainment industries. The following year, Bartomeu repeated the videoconference and discussed the Club’s model and strategic objectives with an international focus.

FC Barcelona will also be represented at the conference on Participation, Inclusion and Social Responsibility in Global Sports on 1 and 2 June by Javier Sobrino, Director of Strategic Planning and Innovation for FC Barcelona; and Mària Vallès, Director of the Barça Foundation. Both will take part in some sessions organised over these two days alongside representatives from Cornell University, the University of Southern California, UEFA, the Boston Red Sox’s Foundation, and the Seattle Sounders’s Foundation, among others.

MIT visit with Barça Innovation Hub

On Friday morning, Josep Maria Bartomeu will visit MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The visit to this prestigious North American university will have two main parts: firstly, the MIT Innovation Ecosystem; and secondly, the MIT Sports Lab.

The blaugrana President will have the opportunity to get to know first hand the investigation projects that are being carried out by FC Barcelona, through its Barça Innovation Hub platform, with the MIT Sports Lab focused on sport analysis. This project aims to analyse and categorise the different techniques for the analysis of data and the different ways of attacking the La Liga sides have. Eight students from varied disciplines (Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering and Business Administration) have been used for this project. It is being led by two professors from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, Annette Hosoi and Christina Chase.

The multidisciplinary group has been working on this project with one of the Barça Innovation Hub’s knowledge areas, focused on Analysis and Sports Technology. This area of the BIHUB aims to complement the coach’s expert eye with the development of data analysis to help study different match situations depending on the position of the player in relation to the ball.