PM — Using AI to prevent sports injuries

Happy Monday, friends. It’s shaping up to be another busy news day here at home as the House of Representatives presses on with its budget debates and the Madbouly Cabinet pushes through more regulations.

THE BIG STORY TODAY

Real estate developers are coming under a watchful eye, after cabinet approved a slate of new regulations today designed to protect consumers and reduce market risk, it said in a statement. The new controls make it a legal requirement for auditors to monitor each developer, in addition to requiring developers to submit semi-annual reports on their projects and activities. The new regulations also require companies to create separate bank accounts for each of their projects, and forbid developers from doing any marketing activity for sales of units before they obtain ministerial approval for the project.

THE BIG STORY ABROAD

The international business press is paying particular attention this afternoon to the fate of European energy markets as they withdraw from Russian gas supplies. A number of European countries, including Germany, Austria, and Italy, are turning to increasing their reliance on coal to secure energy supplies ahead of the winter, after Russia begins to throttle its natural gas exports to the continent. Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and CNBC all have more.

The upside to all this: Gas exports from Egypt to the EU are in a prime position to fill the Moscow-shaped hole in Europe’s energy market. Egypt, Israel, and the EU signed last week a new nine-year MoU that will see Israel send more gas to Egypt’s LNG facilities before exporting it on tankers to European shores.

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HAPPENING NOW-

The House of Representatives is wrapping up its second day of plenary session debate on the proposed FY 2022-2023 state budget as we hit “send” on this afternoon’s issue. MPs have so far broadly agreed that they will greenlight the spending plan, despite their reservations about the government’s borrowing plans.

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** CATCH UP QUICK on the top stories from today’s EnterpriseAM:

• MPs aren’t happy with borrowing plans in FY2022-2023 budget: The government’s estimates for sovereign debt in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget drew criticism from MPs during the first day of budget debate in a plenary session at the House of Representatives yesterday.
• House gets down to business on Competition Act amendments: The House’s Economic Affairs Committee yesterday discussed giving greater powers to the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) under proposed amendments to the Competition Act.
• Fitch has cut Egypt’s GDP growth forecast for FY2022-2023 to 4.4% from a prior projection of 5.5%, saying the economy will grow more slowly next fiscal year due to inflationary pressures, it said in its monthly outlook on North Africa.

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???? CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR-

CIB and the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES) are hosting the second day of their joint conference, Towards COP27 and Beyond, tomorrow at 9am at Semiramis Intercontinental. You can attend the conference at the venue or online via Zoom, or catch the event’s live stream on ECES’ Facebook page.

It’s interest rate week: The Central Bank of Egypt will meet on Thursday to discuss interest rates. A majority of analysts and economists we surveyed expect policymakers to leave rates unchanged, according to our customary poll.

The Big 5 Construct Egypt (pdf) construction industry exhibition runs from 25-27 June at the Egypt International Exhibition Center (EIEC) in Cairo.

Amcham AGM later this month: Our friends over at Amcham will hold their annual general meeting on Monday 27 June at the St. Regis Cairo Hotel. Finance Minister Mohamed Maait will address the gathering.

Check out our full calendar on the web for a comprehensive listing of upcoming news events, national holidays and news triggers.

☀️ TOMORROW’S WEATHER- Expect daytime highs of 36°C tomorrow, with the mercury falling to 21°C at night, our favorite weather app tells us.

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We’re looking for editors who want to run publications and teams, editors to help reporters craft stories and talented reporters. Egyptian and foreign nationals alike are welcome to apply. So are job-switchers: If you’re an equities analyst tired of the rat race, we’re a great place to come work.

Apply directly to jobs@enterprisemea.com and mention Patrick in your subject line.

Or hit this link for more information. It’s worth it — trust us.
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Over 55% of footballers who played in the African Cup of Nations (Afcon) and EURO 2022 finals were subjected to online abuse, according to a FIFA study (pdf). England and Italy played in the EURO 2022 final game, while Egypt and Senegal played in this year’s Afcon final. The study used AI to analyze over 400k Twitter and Instagram posts which targeted players and coached participating in the two final matches and concluded that homophobic slurs were the most common, followed by racism, with the majority of the attacks coming from the players’ home country.

Who bore the brunt of the bullying? From the Afcon final, a substitute from the Egyptian team was the most-abused player, the report says, without naming the player. Former national team coach and manager Carlos Queiroz came in the top-five most abused targets in the Afcon final; his departure from the team came shortly thereafter. The report also notes that racist slurs were the second-most common form of online abuse, following homophobic insults, with Black players from England’s team who missed penalties receiving the majority of abusive comments following their final match against Italy. And, rather ironically, most abusers “come from the players’ home nation,” the report says.

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Is the Philippines about to steal Benban’s thunder? Renewable energy firm Solar Philippines is moving closer to finalizing agreements to build its planned 10 GW solar energy megaproject — which would take the title of the world’s largest solar park from Egypt’s Benban, reports Bloomberg. If the company manages to obtain all necessary approvals, the solar park would generate 9 terawatt hours a year of contracted energy, with a goal of reaching most of the targeted capacity by 2025 or 2026. The project will also include a significant amount of battery storage technology and the entire venture would double the country’s existing solar capacity.

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
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Spiderhead is one of Netflix’s big new movies for the summer: Chris Hemsworth and Miles Teller — a duo that is easy on the eyes — play inmates in a remote prison that doubles as a research center for a pharma company testing its experimental meds. These meds hone in on certain emotions such as love, happiness, fear, and darkness, sometimes forcing prisoners to experience horrible events in their heads. The movie is quite dystopian and has an overarching sinister feel that is often abruptly interrupted by lighter, more whimsical scenes. We’re not sure how we feel about that element of the movie, but The Verge puts it best, describing it as “jarring tonal whiplash.” The plot sees Teller’s character question the intentions of the pharma company and start to investigate from within the prison, only to discover a conspiracy that the inmates are all pawns in. The film starts out strong, but doesn’t end on quite the same note. It’s nonetheless interesting and presents a new take on the typical dystopian flick.

⚽ No football games in sight, folks.

But there is news- Chelsea FC’s chairman Bruce Buck is stepping down after his 19-year tenure, following Todd Boehly’s takeover of the football club, reports Goal. The American lawyer’s tenure saw the Blues take hom 18 trophies. He will now move into a senior advisory role with the club starting from the end of the month.

???? OUT AND ABOUT-
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Today is the last day to check out the Framing Life photo exhibition at the Kodak Passageway in downtown until 9pm. The exhibition features works by 12 Egyptian students who completed the Danish School of Media and Journalism photojournalism course, with the event organized by the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Initiative.

It’s a Linkin Park tribute night at ElSawy Culturewheel today, with Figure09 performing some of the band’s most beloved songs on stage at 7pm.

The Greek Campus is kicking off The Junction: Meet The Creative School tomorrow, where leaders from creative industries will debate some of the field’s most urgent topics and share their expert insights on how to grow the local creative field. The event will take place at 6-9pm tomorrow.

???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Building a Second Brain outlines how you can use tech to enhance your daily functions: With everyone subjected to so much information every day in real life and virtually, it can often feel like an overload to your brain. However, technology provides us with digital tools that can keep note of things, remind us of events, and help prioritize our days, making us feel less bombarded and giving us more time to think. Author Tiago Forte suggests using apps and notes to notice patterns in yourself and document your thoughts in a way that could lead you to better yourself and create something out of it. “To properly take advantage of the power of a second brain,” he says, “we need a new relationship to information, to technology, and even to ourselves.”

The EGX30 fell 0.5% at today’s close on turnover of EGP 615 mn (26.5% below the 90-day average). Foreign investors were net sellers. The index is up/down 19.0% YTD.

In the green: Madinet Nasr Housing (+6.2%), Sidi Kerir Petrochem (+1.3%) and TMG Holding (+1.2%).

In the red: Ezz Steel (-4.5%), Cleopatra Hospitals (-3.4%) and Fawry (-2.9%).

How AI and machine learning could prevent injury and optimize performance in the world of professional sport: The days of sports professionals pushing their limits and hoping for the best — and risking injury or exhaustion in the process — could be behind us. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning programs are increasingly relied upon to predict sports injuries and enhance player performance, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Many sports injuries can be predicted — with the right data. Injury can seriously impact an athlete’s physical and mental well-being, as well as their career potential, and is even more common among amateur athletes and young people than among professionals. But many injuries could be prevented — up to a third of injuries in professional football arise from overuse and could therefore be predicted by algorithms, according to Nature.

The use of AI in sports is seeing rapid global market growth: Valued at an estimated USD 1.4 bn in 2020, the market is expected to reach some USD 19.2 bn by 2030, according to a recent Allied Market Research report.

So how do the programs work? By collecting lots of data. Positional and biometric data gathering is creating hundreds of new metrics to optimize decision-making processes in sports, says Deloitte Insights. “There are athletes that are treating their body like a business, and they’ve started to leverage data and information to better manage themselves,” the WSJ quotes Kitman Labs founder and CEO Stephen Smith as saying. “We will see way more athletes playing far longer and playing at the highest level far longer as well.”

Tracking indicators can measure how players (or balls, or other objects) move around a field or court, using metrics including speed, acceleration, jump height, and lateral motion.

Biometric indicators — including pulse rate, blood oxygen levels, sweat rate and sleep rhythms — can measure players’ physical exertion, where they’re susceptible to injury, and their rest needs.

Some sports scientists also factor in contextual data — ranging from a player’s mood, to how much water they’ve drunk or how far they have traveled in a given period, their body mass index, and previous injuries.

Companies already operating in the market include nutrition coaching app FoodVisor, which uses machine learning to recognize over 1.2k types of food and estimate its quantity and nutritional value on a plate; AI system Zone7, which crunches data from tens of thousands of athletes to analyze changes in body movement and make injury risk forecasts and training suggestions; Skillcorner, which tracks football players’ movement and performance; and injury risk analytics provider Kitman Labs.

Are these programs being used in MENA? Not yet, as far as we can tell. MENA has seen the growth of data analytics in areas including digital fan engagement by the UAE Jiu-Jitsu Federation (UAEJJF), performance monitoring of fan services in the region by LaLiga, and the rise of Egypt’s own football data analytics startup Arqam FC. Programs that predict sports injuries don’t appear to be in use here yet, though.

All the potential applications are still to be explored: “In the last five or ten years, teams have been capturing huge volumes of data,” data scientist Derek McHugh is quoted by Nature as saying. “There’s a gap between how much data we’ve been capturing and what’s actually been done with it,” he says. “We’re trying to fill that gap using machine learning.”

But data privacy concerns could put the brakes on widespread adoption: Questions about who actually owns player data — including sensitive health information — remain unanswered. Some players are reluctant to have their data collected, citing privacy concerns and the fear that it could impact contract negotiations. And while certain professional sports leagues have put some frameworks in place to partially safeguard player data, the new tech is developing quickly, outpacing attempts to regulate data use, notes Deloitte.