Some projects begin with a simple conviction: people are more than their results.

CompetencIA is one of them.

A project that brings together artificial intelligence, adaptive sports, and socio-emotional competency development with a purpose that is easy to express but difficult to achieve: understanding people better in order to support them better.

On March 6, we came together to share the first lessons learned from this project.

Knowing Who Is in Front of You Changes Everything

Cristóbal Sánchez has been collaborating with the research laboratory for more than two years. Through his work in the educational field, he is clear about the starting point: understanding the socio-emotional profile of students—or a sports team—is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

“If, during a one-hour training session, we can work on the competencies that a group scores lowest on, everything improves as a result.”

But Cristóbal goes a step further.

Socio-emotional competencies do not only improve performance; they can also act as an early warning system. Emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, or low empathy are patterns that can be identified before they evolve into situations such as school bullying.

Not to label or diagnose, but to guide intervention.

“We have a map that tells us whether a class may need more training on bullying prevention. Because bullying is not just about insults. And we can contrast that information with Human AI’s results.”

In this sense, the tool does not replace the professional—it guides them.

It helps educators design emotional management workshops, provide individualized support when needed, and adapt educational services to each person's real circumstances.

As Cristóbal pointed out:

“It’s not a bed of roses. Measuring is not enough. You have to dedicate time to it, and you have to act.”

Measuring and then doing nothing is not an option.

Data without action does not transform anything.

For the past two years, the research lab has continuously worked with socio-emotional competency data to support the prevention of school bullying.

Factors such as emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, and low empathy often align with patterns commonly associated with bullying behavior.

The tool does not diagnose or label. It serves as a screening mechanism—an early warning signal that helps focus interventions where they are most needed.

Coaching Athletes You Cannot See the Way Others Do

Martina Goñi works with athletes with visual impairments.

Her testimony opened a window onto one of the major challenges of adaptive sports: understanding the people you coach when many of the usual signals are unavailable.

“Very often, when working with people who have visual impairments, it is difficult to understand what they are really like. You get to know them only after spending many hours together. You have to be both coach and psychologist, and you're not always prepared for that.”

In this context, CompetencIA is more than an assessment tool.

It is a bridge.

A way of objectifying what experienced intuition already suspects—and of extending that knowledge beyond sport itself.

“This tool will help me integrate people with disabilities not only into sport, but into society as a whole.”

That sentence captures the project's broader ambition: to make adaptive sports more visible, to act through education, to train those who train others, and above all, to help society better understand and value the achievements of these athletes.

Guatemala: When the Tool Meets a Much Harder Reality

If there was one lesson that challenged everyone in the room, it came from Iñigo Ayerra's experience in Guatemala.

As a volunteer in an adaptive sports camp for people with disabilities—many of whom live in orphanages, have uncertain diagnoses, and have had little or no access to formal education—he encountered realities that forced the project to rethink many assumptions.

“I was amazed by the data. Things I had intuitively observed in my students were being confirmed with evidence.”

But implementing Human AI in that context required rethinking every step.

The barriers were not only technological. They were cultural, linguistic, and cognitive.

Many participants could not read or write.

Others had limited or no verbal language.

Diagnoses, when available, were not always reliable due to limited resources.

And concepts such as irony—which are often embedded in traditional assessment methods—simply do not translate across all cultural contexts.

The conclusion Iñigo shared was one of the most valuable lessons of the project:

When working with people with disabilities, the tool must be fully individualized.

There is no universal protocol.

There are people, each with their own story.

And yet, something worked.

Something Iñigo describes simply:

“The best thing about this project is the networks we are creating. Making sure these stories are heard. Giving visibility to disability.”

What We Learned Together

The meeting became a space for shared learning among professionals working in very different environments—formal education, high-performance adaptive sports, and international cooperation.

Yet they all shared the same guiding principle.

Three ideas resurfaced throughout the discussion:

Measurement Is the Beginning, Not the End

Data only becomes valuable when it leads to action.

Socio-emotional competencies do not improve simply because they have been measured.

They improve when someone does something with that information.

Adaptation Is Not Optional

Not in Guatemala.

Not in a classroom supporting students with special educational needs.

Not on an adaptive athletics track.

The tool must adapt to the person—not the other way around.

Visibility Is Also an Act of Justice

Making adaptive sports visible, sharing these stories, presenting findings at scientific and academic conferences—these are all part of the project.

Because what remains invisible effectively does not exist.

And these individuals deserve to be at the center of the conversation.

Moving Forward

CompetencIA continues to move forward.

Important questions remain open—such as the relationship between socio-emotional competencies and IQ, or how assessment tools can be adapted for contexts with severe communication barriers.

And there are still many people left to support.

But something solid has already emerged:

Evidence.

A network.

And a shared purpose.

Three ingredients that, together, have the potential to change how we understand human development—not only in sport, but beyond it.

CompetencIA is an applied research project that combines artificial intelligence with socio-emotional competency development in the field of adaptive sports.

If you would like to learn more about how we assess and develop competencies through a human-centered approach, get in touch with us.