Can Artificial Intelligence help Israelis improve their football skills?

Business

A recently developed Israeli app, “PLAIVIEW,” can analyze any football game and provide summaries designed to help improve the player’s skill. 

Developed by a start-up of the same name, in Herzliya, the app made its first appearance at the Halutz [Pioneer] – Education through Sport youth tournament at the Wolfson complex in Tel Aviv on Sunday. 

The children at the event were exposed to this ground breaking application that takes a football game and analyzes them with the help of artificial intelligence and deep computer vision to produce summaries of the game from the beginning to the end. The company claims that the app can be used “for any age, place, or purpose.”

The app was developed a year and a half ago in Herzliya and is available to all in Apple’s App store. It is expected to soon be available on Android as well.

Created by CEO Or Pines, CTO Yoav Lieberman and CPO Yonatan Dubinsky, who “wanted to make the technological capabilities that exist for professional football players accessible to anyone who likes to play. Whether it’s in the park, the play field, the neighborhood or in the yard.”

PLAIVIEW Founders Yoav Lieberman (left), Or Pines (center), and Yonatan Dubinsky (right) at the the 8200 for startups by EISP accelerator opening night. (credit: Halutz – Education through Sports)

CEO Or Pines explained just how to use the app. “All that is needed is to download the application, register, record the game and the system creates the summary automatically so that you can send or share on social networks. It addicts people to seeing their goals and sharing them with all their family and friends. In the end, when you make a scissor kick, you want to see it,” he said.

The goals of the Halutz tournament

HaHalutz’s annual tournament brought together six teams from three different cities: Hoshen schools (which brings two teams) and Beit Arava both from Jerusalem, and Amal Ashdod. Two youth centers from Haifa, Beit Yatziv and Beit Resler, are also included.

Hundreds of children came together for the tournament and even had the chance to meet with a special team of the Israel Police Special Patrol Unit (Yasam), who participated in the activity. The ultimate goal was to bring the youth and the police closer together. At the end, the children and members of Yasam held a celebratory exhibition game.

The founder of “Halutz,” Omer Livnat said, “We are proud and excited for another tournament that brings together several schools and brings together children from different cities, with the goal in our way being to combine football with education. The great innovation is that this time all the children will be able to receive their every kick and goal during the event, with the help and cooperation of PLAIVIEW. We are sure that each and every child will leave this day happy and above all a better person.”

The activities of “Halutz” are varied including annual sports teams for children and youth in football, basketball, workshops and sports days. The main emphasis of all the activities is the education in the values of fairness, sportsmanship and friendship alongside connecting to the community and building a community around sports.