Shrikant Hazare is the Mumbai-based chief marketing manager of Kids Out Of Home Sports Pvt. Ltd (KOOH), a company providing professionally-delivered sports training to children. With 20 years of marketing experience, Hazare’s job as head of the sports and events divisions is to persuade managements of private and international schools to boost sports education by modernising their sports curriculums and infrastructure to ensure students world-class sports experiences.
With a laudable aim to protect children from the dangers of sedentary lifestyles and revive their interest for outdoor sports, KOOH’s curriculum covers a range of sports: cricket, basketball, football, tennis, volleyball and swimming.
Direct speech. “KOOH’s unique proposition is that it arouses the universally latent love of sports through latest technology and international best practices to deliver ‘out of home’ sports and games experiences to children. The KOOH way of providing age-appropriate education is very scientific and incorporates the disciplines of physiology, psychology, nutrition and biomechanics in addition to performance analysis and physiological assessment. It provides children a foundation for sports as a professional career as well as opportunities to engage with sports to enhance their academic experience,” says Hazare.
History. With 19 years of experience in marketing consumer, entertainment and B2B products and services, Hazare began his career as a marketing executive in Mcdowell Ltd, and later did stints with Seagram India, the Mumbai-based SKNL Group and Gujarat Fluoro Chemicals, which manages the Inox chain of cinemas countrywide. India’s dismal performances in the Olympics and international sports, and a keen interest in sport that Hazare and the promoters of KOOH share, was the motivation behind its promotion last year.
“We have devised a unique Balanced Report Card programme based on an international fitness course, sports content developed by several universities abroad, video tools created by inter-national sports federations, and inputs of Olympic and world champions,” says Hazare.
Future plans. With its promotional and teething pains over, KOOH which currently delivers its advanced sports development and BRC programmes to 10,000 children in five states across the country, has drawn up an ambitious roll-out plan to provide advanced sports education to 125,000 students countrywide. “Given the focus on sports, health and fitness as part of the formal school curriculum, we are in the right business at the right time. Our intention is to build a strong sporting culture in the country and gradually expand our reach to the mass of children at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid,” says Hazare fervently.
Way to go, bro!
Kalpana Rangan (Mumbai)