Back to the future to take interactive sports wall to UK market

A concept developed 25 years ago is being brought to the UK market by a Yorkshire-based tech firm.

The idea for the world’s first interactive wall for sports training and gaming was first devised by Pete Oliver, from Wigan.

However, he was unable to make it financially viable. The concept has now been taken up by Fired up Technologies, in Brighouse.

It is moving forward with supplying interactive wall technology to the UK market in the form of Ludus Interactive.

Ludus Interactive is a technology product development company, specialising in offering a range of technologies all aimed at encouraging people to be more physically active through using interactive gaming.

Oliver, an ex-miner, first came up with his idea in 1995. The product originally named “SoccerSquash” aimed to harness sports and present them in a controlled and accessible manner.

Oliver enlisted professional help to bring it to life and was introduced to Dr Kevin Doughty who helped him put together guidance a working prototype.

A patent was granted and the invention was one of five winners of an annual Smart Award in Wales. This provided a £25,000 grant used by Oliver and his team to partially fund the prototype.

Unfortunately, after years of trying to make SoccerSquash commercially viable, Oliver was unable to gain traction with his new technology.

He explained: “Inventing it was easy for me, but it was hard to garner interest to commercialise it.

“It seemed no one had vision to think the whole interactive technology thing would catch on and didn’t see the need for it. Whereas now interactive and touch technology is commonplace within the home and in everyday life.”

Fired Up Technologies has now picked up the baton and has met up with Oliver, 25 years on from when he first came up with the initial concept.

Daniel Edley, from Fired Up Technologies, said: “In today’s society interactive touch technology is native for lots of people and therefore combining it with gaming to create a gateway for participation in physical activity is the way forward.

“Peter saw this over 20 years ago which is pretty impressive, as interactive touch was not common in everyday life then.”