“Life is often a succession of encounters. They intersperse our journey. They give it momentum and vigour. Our meeting with the Peace and Sport team at the end of 2018 was one of those special moments that marks a day when there was a before and after. Together, we devised a new application for the sports movement, developed by My Coach, which is designed to teach  Peace and Sport’s methodology to coaches, educators and teachers around the world. Above all, we added new meaning to our presence and our action in the sporting landscape.

I like to think of this meeting as decisive. Six months after we started talking, the app was available. In its own way, it changed our start-up, My Coach, which we had founded eight years earlier. It gave it new meaning. It confirmed and strengthened our commitment to corporate social responsibility.

The momentum was initially internal. By helping the Peace and Sport team in the field in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, the representatives from My Coach discovered a brutal and unvarnished reality. For several days, they witnessed the daily lives of the thousands of displaced people for whom sport is one of the lifelines. They added images, sounds and smiles to the stories they heard from people whose battered lives were in the media spotlight for a short time, then too quickly forgotten.

They recounted everything when they returned to Nice. They told the rest of the My Coach team about their experience in Jordan with Peace and Sport. Their testimonies injected new sense into our work. The application developed with Peace and Sport became a unifying tool. It cemented our commitment. It impacted our whole creative chain.

But the upshot of our commitment to peace through sport is not only internal. It goes far beyond the framework of our start-up. Being able to say that our work, our ideas and our efforts are useful for something is a true luxury. It is now within our reach. With the support new technologies, sport now plays a driving role in sharing knowledge, education, and the values of respect and solidarity. Furthermore, its scope and its global nature makes it a unique lever to change society. The digital revolution has arrived. There’s no stopping it now. Perhaps we’re just at the beginning.

Digitalization is breaking down barriers and abolishing frontiers. It is strengthening communities. With a tool like the Peace and Sport App, everyone can access education and knowledge at the same time. A teacher in New York can access it at the same time as an educator in the Zaatari refugee camp. The social impact of business has never been so direct. It has taken on a new, concrete and limitless dimension. Our commitment to Peace and Sport is in line with this dynamic of sharing and accessibility. At our first meeting, we didn’t think twice before joining the cause of peace through sport. And we have never regretted it since. This commitment strengthens our heritage. It makes us better.”