FRISCO, Texas — Yumasa Kabayama, CEO and co-founder of performance improvement app Uplift, started Thursday with a trip to the emergency room after a bout with food poisoning. The former president of Tesla Motors Japan admitted that he had difficulty standing and spent most of the morning on his back, ultimately resulting in a medical visit.
But the day gradually got better.
After competing against a group of other golf technology startups, Kabayama's group took home top honors at the inaugural GolfWeek Tech Lab held at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort just north of Dallas.
The event, hosted by T-Mobile for Business, was a joint venture between Golfweek, part of the USA Today Sports Media Group, and Gannett Co., Inc. and the Underdog Ventures team. The event brought together stakeholders from both the financial investment industry and the golf community, as well as his carefully selected group of 18 technology startups, with the aim of making an impact in the golf business.
Golf innovators come together (adjacent to the future) @ridercup course).interesting day @CityOfFriscoTx. pic.twitter.com/XTdaGgshDI
— Tim Schmidt (@TMSGolfweek) March 21, 2024
The win earned Uplift $25,000 in prize money and a cover story in a future issue of Golfweek.
Kabayama said, “I'm still a little shocked and surprised.'' “Today has been a wonderful day.”
Uplift was one of four Best of Show winners at the event. In addition to the Grand Prix, the Palo Alto, California-based company also won in the Player Performance category. Other winners include Fabric in the fan engagement category, Clicktivated in the e-commerce category, and Whoosh in the business solution category.
The event will include a panel discussion on Generative AI in Sports with Microsoft's Jon Flynn and Mercury13's Nancy Hensley, and a panel discussion on Innovation and the PGA of America with Sportsbox's Jeehae Lee and PGA of America's Chris Hart. It included numerous panel discussions. .
