Abraham Desir
Jiacheng Zhang
Anthony Byrd
Case Western Reserve University - Weatherhead School of Management
Megan Buchter
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It is a training tool that combines their training platform with large touch screens that serve as mediums for light-based cognitive training. The programs on the screen provide athletes with the opportunity to improve their reaction speed and eye-hand coordination by tracking their progress across several sports prevalent metrics.
Reflexion's innovation is their unique cognitive training platform for athletes (especially those looking to rehabilitate). The product is highly adaptable and modifiable with features like adjustable training difficulty and training content so that each athlete can progress in personalized training. The company’s well-developed cloud-based analysis platform plays an excellent role in supporting the athlete's decision-making and peripheral abilities off the field of play. The analytic capabilities allow for accurate feedback on the performance of athletes. The cloud/remote capabilities of the platform allow for remote coaching and assigning of drills/exercises to team players regardless of location. Additionally, there are multiple options for consumers to choose from based on their respective needs. For teams and larger environments, there is a two-screened variant called EDGE. For home use and individual cognitive training endeavors, there is a standard one-screened option called FLEX. Lastly, there are team subscriptions (multiple profiles saved, more functionality across large groups) and single-user subscriptions as well (one profile, one experience).
Matthew Campagna, the founder of the company, is a former soccer player. He has a deep understanding of the challenges athletes face in training and competition, as well as the pain of injury and illness. His co-founder Matthew Roda experienced injuries playing hockey and also felt the need for more research and innovation to take place in the rehabilitation field of the sports business. Based on these experiences and pains, they came up with the idea to create a product that would help others improve performance and prevent injuries by capitalizing on this market need.
In the development of Reflexion’s platform, due to their high-tech nature and specificity, Matthew and his partners enlisted the help of professionals in a variety of fields to help them in their development and research. The first was a sports scientist. The neuro-training feature of the product required extensive research and evidence to prove that the product was effective. This required a lot of "experimental training" and research on the product to prove that it was suitable for a wide range of athletes across skill levels. Second, engineers and software developers were essential Reflexion’s platform’s development. Engineers built the physical structure of the product (screens equipment) while software engineers designed algorithms and functions essential to their cloud-based analysis tools. Lastly, data analysts needed to work with the software developers to ensure that the data derived from the cloud was understandable to the average person.
Understanding Reflexion’s Founders’ past as injured athletes is necessary for understanding the innovation they’ve developed. “Seven years ago, I was a professional soccer player. I enjoyed my career. However, a sudden injury prevented me from continuing; therefore, I acutely understand the pain of other athletes whose careers are stopped by injuries.” This quote comes from Matthew, the founder of Reflexion. There is no doubt that dimension has a special personal meaning as well as value for him. Every athlete today faces the threat of injury; not just for their career, but more so for the sport they love and play as a profession. Others may not be able to imagine the pain of someone who has worked so hard to make a career out of the sport they love, only to lose it to physical causes. But Matthew can understand.
Matthew’s experience sparked his interest in cognitive training/rehabilitation and spreading awareness of the brain’s importance in sports (and life). He wanted to create products that would help other athletes recover from injury without risking further more serious injury. Reflexion’s cognitive training platform works perfectly for athletes who are hungry to hone and maintain their decision-making, hand-eye coordination, and other automatic skills even with the limitations of injury situations where physical rest is necessary.
An athlete using Reflexion's cognitive training platform
Reflexion was first created from a personal backstory in Matt’s life with his fellow co-founder. Matt’s Campagna’s co-founder, Matthew Rhoda, was a hockey athlete who experienced a serious injury on the field of play. At the time, traditional rehabilitation for athletes was fairly understood but not as complete as it should be, according to the founders of Reflexion. Not being able to train the more subconscious skills like hand-eye coordination or peripheral vision-assisted decision-making limited old styles of rehabilitation.
Taking advantage of the technological capabilities we have in this age, both founders used their engineering and entrepreneurial backgrounds to understand that advanced cognitive rehabilitation and training was a viable market and a needed option for athletes forced off the field due to injury or limitations of other kinds. The founders were also inspired by the accelerating and developing body of research dedicated to understanding brain health and cognitive aging.
Matthew expressed confidence in his innovative cognitive training platform. He felt that this form of “off-field training and rehabilitation will become ubiquitous in the sports world” across all levels as more research supports cognitive training endeavors for health and performance. Furthermore, Matt Campagna doubled down and said that if this training style does become widespread, “Reflexion would have played a huge role in that.” Being pioneers in the world of sports business seems to excite Matt Campagna. This is especially evident in his appreciation for his placing in the Front Office Sports Rising 25 List (one of the most prestigious awards for young innovators in the realm of sports business). Overall, Matt and his co-founder were inspired by their own athletic past journeys and the burgeoning field of cognitive neuroscience research regarding brain health and maintenance.
To understand the impact Reflexion's innovation had on the business, our society, and the environment, it is important to note that it is based on studies demonstrating the significance of athletes visual sensory inputs and their accurate integration/interpretation on the field. Reflexion’s innovative athletic cognitive training platform (light-based neuro training focused) impacted the business significantly because it was their first major product, is portable (cloud-platform), and has concise instructions/programs. Additionally, the innovative platform pushed the business into the sports innovation industry which caters to a wide variety of athletics across sports and skill levels. Being such a useful tool has enabled Reflexion to be in contact with school systems and their own athletic teams/coaches. The platform impacts society through the demonstration of awareness, especially when considering how much more knowledge we’ve gained through neuroscience studies over the past several decades.
These studies alongside more widespread awareness of concussions' impacts on our favorite athlete’s brains bring about a sense of urgency with regard to cognitive training implementation and maintenance. This urgency is answered by Reflexion and shows how serious our society should take brain health/development. The impact on the environment is somewhat indirect but still significant.
Through being integral in the building of a cognitive training cloud platform, the platform enables athletic teams, coaches, and trainers to work together from home or remote locations. This decreases total team travel time and theoretically reduces energy use and negative transportation-environmental interactions (air quality degradation, noise pollution, water pollution). Also being an online and cloud platform decreases the use of paper for training education materials. Overall, the platform's impact on the business is the development of a reputation amongst the sports innovation community. The platform’s impact on society is a demonstrated awareness/education of the importance of “brain training with modern data-driven” technology.
The short-term impacts of the innovation are multi-dimensional. From a training standpoint, the short-term impacts of use before athletic competition can include natural neural priming and warming-up of hand-eye coordination and other tenets of visual sensory skills. From a business standpoint, short-medium-term effects may include increased online engagement from certain demographics as more research is done to highlight the benefits of cognitive training. The long-term impacts of the innovation on athletes include an increased decision-making ability in competition situations, and a cognitive training tool for off-field situations (injury, concussion-specific, etc).
During our interview with Reflexion Interactive Technologies founder Matt Campagna, he was asked how he knows that the innovation is capable and currently benefiting customers and their aspirations for good health and well-being. He let us know that the various metrics the cognitive fitness platform assesses can track improvement and changes from program use/training. Matt also cited several studies his team has conducted with other parties including the “MLB & SportsVision which his team worked with to determine six of the metrics the service would be measuring.” His team has also noted that their services have enabled football quarterbacks to decrease the amount of time it takes for them to find a receiver target. Empirically, Matt claims that the industry has been able to detect injury and increase performance within sports. Within its own platform, Reflexion has built upon past research and calibrated its cognitive training platform to target known sports-needed cognitive skills related to reflexes, perception, and decision-making.
Because Reflection developed a cloud-based cognitive training platform that operates on large durable screens, they were able to stand tall in the world of sports business and innovation. The innovation benefits the business on the cloud front because it enables Reflection's platform to be accessible was a wide array of devices. In addition, teams can be scattered across the world and still receive adequate instruction from their coaches. The cloud functionality is especially helpful for injured athletes rehabbing in or out of the team's facilities. Because progress is saved and analyzed routinely, athletes can be comfortable taking their training anywhere.
The innovation has also helped Reflection build relationships with popular sports teams and fellow sports businesses. The team at Reflection has also worked with research institutions towards efforts looking to flesh out the true benefits of cognitive training on athletic well-being and performance. With one of the founders receiving recognition from Front Office Sports Rising 25 List for young sports business innovators, Reflection has garnered the attention of larger entities that can potentially develop Reflection's programs and software or simply allocate support in a financial sense (investing or part-ownership). Furthermore, the quality of the innovation also helps the business. With a 55-inch touch screen (made of borosilicate glass) connected to the platform's light-based training programs, Reflection establishes itself as a company looking to ensure durability and performance from the equipment that holds its unique platform.
The work that Reflexion does has myriad benefits for our society and the environments we live in. For our society, Reflexion enables athletes, aspiring athletes, and coaches to train even in the midst of recovering physically or from performance-impeding injury. Serving as both a rehab tool and a low-fatigue mental training tool, Reflexion enables customers to improve their skills in many different situations. Even for older folks looking to stay more active, Reflexion’s light-based neuro-training pairs seamlessly with simpler fitness regimens to make cognitive aging more pleasant and manageable.
On the other hand, when thinking about innovation’s benefit to the environment, we can mainly think about the reduction in unnecessary transportation efforts because of Reflexion’s platform existing on the internet and on the cloud. With coaches gaining the ability to manage and assign their athletes specific drills/exercises from any location, less fuel consumption and pollution are the results (less team travel, individual athlete/trainer travel).
Additionally, because the training platform holds digital manuals and instructions, there is no need for coaches to waste paper for directions or manuals on certain training regiments. Overall, Reflexion’s benefits to the society and environment are major components of the company's mission statement which revolves around serving athletes/active individuals and increasing awareness of the significance and lasting impacts of training our cognitive skills.
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Matt Campagna, Founder, Lead Engineer
Reflexion is a neuro-fitness service that enhances athletic performance efficiency and engages patients in rehabilitation. Reflexion helps to train neurological skills. These skills include hand-eye coordination, peripheral vision, and more to help athletes compete, recover faster, and reach goals.