The inaugural SoccerCon: The Atlanta Conference on Soccer and Social Innovation happened at the Academy of Medicine on March 29 – 30, 2023, under the leadership of Dr. Kirk Bowman, Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech.  Through their participation in the INTA 3242: Soccer and Global Politics course, students in the Honors Program (HP) were vital contributors to the conference planning and proceedings.  HP students helped with organizing the conference and presented research posters reflecting their work in both INTA 3242 and Dr. Bowman’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) course on Soccer, Community, Innovation, and Politics (SCIP).  The event saw over 130 attendees, with five continents represented.

HP student Jordan Artis, a member of the VIP team, served as the lead student conference coordinator for SoccerCon.  In that capacity, she handled all of the RSVPs, served as a student speaker, worked with the City of Atlanta to have Mayor Andre Dickens submit a brief video presentation for the conference, and arranged for special guests like former Atlanta United player Greg Garza and Atlanta Journal-Constitution sportswriter Doug Roberson.  She even designed the amazing logo!  Dr. Bowman felt that Jordan’s “creativity, leadership, and hard work produced the finest elements of the conference.”  Jordan reflected on her experience this way:

Before this, I had zero experience planning anything, let alone a conference that would have over 130 people in attendance. So, for me, my biggest takeaway (as cliche as it may be) is that you never know until you try.  From working with Vera Zeigler who has been on the biggest stage in front of 70,000 fans at Atlanta United games to getting the Mayor of Atlanta to do a video for us, both of those connections started with a simple email. Beyond this, I would also say it is important to seek discomfort. If you had told me last year that I would take a leading role in planning a whole conference, I would have thought you were joking. However, now I am grateful for the last eight months of work as I achieved many firsts: I successfully conquered my first ever public speaking engagement, I now have legitimate experience in event planning, and I also gained some marketing/advertising experience. It was uncomfortable at times, but ultimately, I found peace in the unfamiliarity.

Other HP students, including Anna Abernathy, Yaron Bernstein, Johan Gouws, Vinay Govindaraju, Daniel Holman, Abel Tilahun, and Ryan Zhou participated in the INTA 3242 class, VIP class, and/or various aspects of the conference. 

Johan’s research focused on the diversification of national soccer teams (such as France having a large number of players of North African descent) and its impact on style and culture of play.  Johan said that he enjoyed SoccerCon “immensely and had some great conversations with various people about [his] research topic, why [he] chose it, and how to better go about [his] research.”  Abel’s research focused on the social, political, and economic impacts on the host country before and after large soccer events such as the World Cup. The event allowed him to connect with awardee Ogba Afeworki and encouraged him to join the VIP team in fall 2023 to participate in building a mobile application for the 2026 World Cup.  Ryan reflected that the experience taught him that “while we have learned many powerful lessons on the relation of soccer to global politics and public policy, many grassroots efforts go unnoticed at the global and academic level which deserve greater recognition.”  In addition to his contributions through two research posters, Vinay served as the team leader of the Discrete Research Team for the VIP.

Overall, it was an extremely successful event, with students and attendees learning much from the experience.  The work will continue—with several Honors Program students participating—in Dr. Bowman’s VIP classes on Soccer, Community, Innovation, Politics (SCIP) in fall 2023 where they will continue their research, produce documentary films, work on community engagement, and develop a podcast centered on soccer and society.  

You can read more about SoccerCon in this article by David Hopings, the Director of Storytelling for Soccer in the Streets and a participant in the conference.