From Surviving to Thriving: Responsible AI for Community Sport Organization

Together, attendees will engage in a World Cafe networking format, examining pain points, current AI practices, and opportunities in sport. Saturday, November 28th, 2026 8am to 1pm – Bayview Yards/Invest Ottawa Light refreshments and lunch provided Led by Drs. Milena Parent and Mayur Joshi and research team from the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management and the University of Guelph Gordon S. Lang School of Business and Economics, this initiative directly addresses the operational realities facing community non-profit sport organizations (NPSOs). With the majority of the community sport sector operating on modest budgets and few employees, sport leaders, operators and administrators are increasingly exploring machine learning and generative AI to streamline the day-to-day priorities, optimize facility allocation and improve athlete participation. Supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) grant and Sport Canada grant, the research team is facilitating the 2026 Ottawa Sport Summit to collaborate directly with the local sport community. Read the details of this research project through the Telfer Knowledge Hub Article. Together, attendees will engage in a World Cafe networking format, examining pain points, current AI practices, and opportunities across the sector to help co-create an ethical, values-driven framework to guide the future of community sport. Summit Overview: Building the Future of AI in Community Sport Free Sector-Wide Attendance: Registration is open to the broad community sport sector – leaders, coaches, administrators, researchers, participants and volunteers at no cost. The OSC encourages donations to the Ottawa Sport for All Fund which provides 100% direct financial support to community sports organizations advancing sport where everyone belongs. Interactive World Café Format: Designed for extensive peer collaboration, the World Café structure facilitates interactive networking where attendees share lived operational challenges, discuss AI capabilities, and learn directly from one another. Direct Field-Level Research Integration: Ideas, operational concerns, and qualitative data gathered across all roundtable discussions will feed directly into an ongoing 4-year study, ensuring academic frameworks reflect real-life community sport realities and are useful for community sport. Co-Creating an Actionable AI Toolkit: Collaborative findings will directly inform an evidence-based, future toolkit that provides community sport with AI safeguards, privacy protocols, and practical governance guidelines.