On/off-line basketball arenas. Involving virtual coaches to the sports.

The Idea:
Big populations of the world are growing up – and have grown up – together with video and computer games, in an era that is well described as the “Gamer Generation”. A number of recent researches study the relation between the “digital world” of the “digital natives” and the real world. It is pretty much accepted that everything in the digital world advances rapidly, and from this education couldn’t be an exception. In terms of educating individuals and masses, its efficiency seems to be incomparable with that of real life education.
In this context, millions of people around the world – not only youth – are spending huge amount of money and time on sports video/computer games. Motor, cognitive, meta-cognitive, social, emotional, personal, and media competence are only some of those the gamers achieve to possess while enjoying themselves in front of their screens.
Nevertheless, this advanced “digital literacy” which succeeds to have the abovementioned educational impact, also results to high percentage of obesity. People tend to be more and more inactive in terms of physical activities, and “real” sports are becoming more and more pleasure for the eye and less for the bodies. Together with the high concentration of fat in the dietary customs of the majority of the “Westerners” and the sedentary life, the lack of sports results in high percentage of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases.
This project focuses on youth (18-30 years old) active in online basketball manager games. The focus on online gamers is justified by the fact that on-line games do not demand budget from their users, and therefore, their users may come from any social/financial background that can afford a computer device connected to internet. The focus on basketball has more to do with our personnel’s experience and capacity in the sport, since our organization has been organizing 3 on 3 basketball tournaments every summer in the last 7 years, in Kalamata.
The idea of our project is to motivate young gamers – virtual basketball managers – in the off-line sport, give them the opportunity to have advanced training in actual basketball arenas, practice their skills in real game and maybe consider.
Objectives:
 promote voluntary activities in sport, together with social inclusion, equal opportunities and awareness of the importance of health-enhancing physical activity, through increased participation in, and equal access to sport for all;
 promote a balanced and healthy lifestyle for young virtual basketball managers;
 promote a positive image of the computer/video games and their possible contribution in stimulating sport-friendly attitudes;
 tackle cross-border threats to the integrity of sport, namely match fixing, violence, as well as all kinds of intolerance and discrimination;
 offer to young graduates of physical education professional experience in coaching;
 support grassroots basketball
 promote international co-operation between organizations working with youth and sports organizations;
 research the impact of on-line basketball manager games in the general attitude of young gamers towards the sport.