Christyna Serrano talks sports tech and education in the wake of Collider Cup success

This year, sports technology has taken UC Berkeley by storm. Three out of the five winning teams at SCET’s entrepreneurship showcase, Collider Cup XIV, came from the “Sports Tech and the Entrepreneurship of Sports” course last semester.

Playvision, whose technology analyzes football plays for athlete training, took home the overall first prize, while Aqua AI, which provides analysis and coaching for swimmers, won third place. Team Optigenix won the Collider Cup “Alumni Expo”, for their tailored supplements that improve athlete health and help prevent injuries.

While many factors contribute to the rise of sports tech, one reason for these teams’ success is the enthusiastic involvement of Sports Tech instructor, Christyna Serrano (B.A. Sociology, M.A. Education, PhD Education). As a faculty member with SCET, the School of Education and Haas School of Business, Serrano has a wealth of experience in facilitating innovative courses that combine education, technology and entrepreneurship. 

Although she has taught numerous SCET courses, Sports Tech is particularly important to Serrano, who was an undergraduate track and field athlete at Berkeley.

“As a former student athlete myself, I understand how much [student athletes’] identities are wrapped up in being [an] athlete,” she said. “When I came in, I didn’t understand the kinds of opportunities that Cal provided, and the ways that I might parlay my sport into my future next steps. I want student athletes to see that the skill sets they develop as an athlete – the hard work, the perseverance, the ability to be part of a team – are translatable and can serve them in other contexts.”

Serrano has observed that the intersection between athletics and entrepreneurship is especially fruitful.

“Athletes make some of the greatest entrepreneurs because of the fact that they have these skills, which they demonstrated through Collider Cup – they’re charismatic, they’re persistent, they know how to present,” she said. “[Sports Tech] has been a wonderful opportunity to think about how to create a pipeline for athletes, because it’s expanded conversations about how to support athletes in expanding the majors and opportunities they take.”

Beyond opening doors for student athletes, Serrano sees the broader potential of sports as a topic for technology and entrepreneurship.

“Everybody loves sports,” she said, explaining why this particular field has gained so much traction lately. “It’s a topic that naturally brings together lots of people. Technology is a huge component of society too. And so you intersect these two powerful arenas… The way technology improves fan engagement or athlete performance or coaching, it amplifies what athletes can do and how fans can engage with it. What could athletes accomplish, as we see technology being more and more integrated into sports?”

By bringing together students across disciplines, Sports Tech embraces SCET’s “Collider Model” of education, where innovation is fueled by interactions between the unique skill sets of people from multiple backgrounds.

Serrano’s belief in embracing rapidly-changing technologies is also reflected in the Sports Tech course’s focus on AI.

“Because AI is such a rapidly changing field, I want it to be incorporated in every way possible – assignments, activities in class, products. I want students to have practice using AI because it is significantly shaping education and the future of work,” she said.

Serrano cited Kevin Kelly’s book “The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future”, which is a required reading for Sports Tech, to highlight the importance of involving students with the newest technological advances.

“Technology is so rapidly evolving that you’ll never be an expert because it goes so much faster than we can,” she explained. “As a teacher, I subscribe to the idea that teachers and learners can all learn from each other. My role is to facilitate structures that set students up for meaningful lifelong learning. I’d rather teach AI without fully understanding it than wait and give my students the disservice of not giving them the opportunity and space to critically learn from it and play with it. If they are comfortable stepping into that technology, they have a voice in that future, they can be at these tables where this technology is being decided upon.”

To Serrano, this goes hand in hand with the need to challenge learners to make the most of their opportunities inside and outside of the classroom. She emphasizes that the process of interacting actively with class concepts is more complex than simply earning assignment points.

“One of the things that frustrates me about teaching is the contentious nature of grading,” she said. “More important than the grade in my class is the relationships you’ll develop. You could be working with someone and launching a multi-million dollar company. The grade, ten years from now, will not matter at all. What matters is who you got to know and what skills you got to develop in your process of being present in the learning experience.”

Such skills benefit Sports Tech students far beyond the Collider Cup.

“This is an opportunity for students to take ownership of the learning process, and I think you need that as an entrepreneur,” Serrano added. “Working together and really showing that commitment to one another prepared students for not only the challenge of the Collider Cup, but also – Playvision, for example, is participating in Skydeck Pad 13, and the two founders of Optigenix have been doing legwork to get their product on the market.” 

As someone who deeply cares about the futures of her students, Serrano expressed gratitude for the opportunities that teaching Sports Tech provides.

“I’m in the business of making changemakers,” she said, “and I have been surprised at the role that a course like Sports Tech plays in achieving goals that have nothing to do with sports, but that support young people in seeing how they can make change in the world. Teaching Sports Tech has really opened up my ability to reach students I wouldn’t normally be able to.” 

For universities as a whole, Serrano advocates for the relevance of an educational model like that of SCET Changemaker courses. To her, it emphasizes the ultimate goal of what education should mean.

“Yes, sports tech is such a cool topic in its own right, but I think the bigger story is that it enables us to have a broad reach beyond campus in service to students’ growth and opportunities,” she said. “That, I think, is what a university should be doing in its effort to put changemakers out into the world. It’s so cool that SCET enables this kind of opportunity to cultivate and foster people.”