Unified Athlete Interface: Scholarships and Athlete Support at IIT Madras

Nurturing India's athletes - The Unified Athlete Interface

Objective

• Fund the next cohort of athletes on a platform that is already built, staffed and delivering, Close the discovery gap and the accountability gap at once, so that an athlete registers once and stays connected to the ecosystem thereafter, while every rupee of support is tracked to a named, verified beneficiary, Address the attrition of athletes during the long and expensive years between being identified and reaching a national podium, when coaching, competition travel and rehabilitation are largely unfunded, Replace a support landscape scattered across dozens of bodies with a common point of discovery, verification of need, and a record of whether the money changed anything, Build a fully digital platform any athlete anywhere in the country can join directly, so that need surfaces at national scale rather than from someone else's shortlist, Take the platform from more than 1,000 registered athletes to 10,000 and from there towards 1 lakh within the year, Provide monthly scholarships of Rs. 40,000 per athlete, disbursed directly and recorded against the named athlete, meeting coaching fees, training-centre access, nutrition, competition travel and entry, kit and the routine costs of a training year

Description

• The Unified Athlete Interface is a digital platform built at IIT Madras on which an athlete registers once and stays connected to the sporting ecosystem thereafter, while every rupee of support is tracked to a named, verified beneficiary. More than 1,000 athletes are registered, over 600 able-bodied and over 400 para-athletes, of whom 170 receive monthly scholarships of Rs. 40,000 covering coaching, training-centre access, nutrition and competition travel, alongside sports science review and annual medical screening.

Impact

• More than 1,000 athletes registered on the platform today, over 600 able-bodied and over 400 para-athletes, of whom 170 hold scholarships of Rs. 40,000 per month, An auditable beneficiary register in which support reaches verified athletes, not unchecked claims, Rupee-level traceability from contribution to named athlete, with every disbursal recorded on the platform giving a fully auditable trail and clean utilisation certification, Reach beyond the funded cohort, as the platform routes athletes towards other scholarships, trials, camps and schemes matched to their profile, Sports science and case management delivered at the Acrophase performance lab alongside the scholarship, comprising periodic sports science review, annual sports-medical screening, and a named programme officer who tracks each athlete, Quarterly progress reporting covering training compliance, competition results, performance trend and support drawn, and an annual outcome review, A para cohort run alongside a junior cohort, with classification, adaptive training support and accessible travel capability that most implementing agencies do not hold