Travis McDonough, the CEO of Halifax-based health data company Kinduct Technologies, has been named to the first ever Sports Leadership Board, an international body that aims to solve problems in sports technology.

Kinduct has developed a platform that provides the world’s largest collection of sports-related health data to athletes, coaches, trainers and sports medicine professionals.

McDonough is joining 15 other international experts on the athlete data board with the goal of creating standards that can be used in producing and using data on athletes’ performance. Bloomberg News on Tuesday said the new board will examine such thorny issues as who owns athletes’ data, what privacy concerns should be addressed, and whether data issues should be included in collective bargaining.

“Kinduct is honoured to be one of the influential thought leaders who will be helping shape the future direction of the sports and human performance industry,” said McDonough in an email Tuesday night. “To help identify problems and then action on solutions in collaboration with organizations such as the NFL, NHL, NFLPA, MGM, UFC [and others] is a great privilege and opportunity for Kinduct.” 

Boston-based Sports Innovation Lab, a market intelligence company in SportsTech, announced Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that it would oversee a series of leadership boards for the sports industry.

Each leadership board will address a specific challenge facing SportsTech and bring together thought leaders to collaboratively solve issues under the independent guidance of Sports Innovation Lab. The athlete data leadership board is intended to be the first of many.

"Sports executives have been waiting for a solution, or trying to create one in isolation,” said Angela Ruggiero, CEO and Co-founder of Sports Innovation Lab and a four-time Olympian. “By bringing the proven model of leadership boards to the sports industry, our intention is to accelerate the process by creating consensus and providing actionable solutions for the business of sports."

The data leadership board will include the heads of several sports data companies like Kinduct as well as senior representatives of such high profile organizations as the NFL, the Ultimate Fighting Championship and MGM Resorts International.

Kinduct’s Athlete Management System product is already helping well over 100 professional and elite sports organizations find information on the human body and specific athletes. The software helps these organizations collect, organize, share and analyze data on one centralized platform, leading to more informed decisions. It draws from more than 500 data sources and includes the world’s largest library of medical animation.

The company last raised funding in a US$9 million round led by Intel Capital in October, 2016.