Sports and sports technology as an enabler of global health and understanding

摘要

Participation in individual or team-based sports provides everyone with the opportunity to learn and practice humanitarian attitudes and skills necessary for global citizenship. Sports by their nature present no economic, status, nationality, gender, or cultural barriers for participation. Sports facilitate personal health and wellness and a peaceful, diverse, tolerant, and understanding world for everyone regardless of circumstance. This is particularly the case for those who are handicapped and those from isolated and/or economically challenged regions of the world. Sports participation has, for them, been the enabler of a better life, respect, and bringing hope through example to others facing seemingly unsurmountable difficult circumstances. In this report selected case studies of athletes and sporting organizations that through strength, courage and determination overcame barriers and achieved success benefiting humanity. Case studies of technology innovations that facilitate global participation by all peoples regardless of circumstance are discussed. For-profit and non-profit organizations are increasingly taking ownership of their social and humanitarian responsibility to make the world a better place through opportunity and sponsorship of sports for all. Public policy and applied technological research both have an important role to ensure the equitable and universal opportunity for participation regardless of circumstance.