Imagine assessing athletic ability with nothing more than a smartphone camera—no sensors, no wearables, just computer vision analyzing movement in real time. This is the technological reality being built today, where visual AI is eliminating barriers to sports access and transforming our understanding of human potential.
Nirav Shah isn’t just building technology – he’s challenging how we think about athletic potential. As Co-Founder & CFO of KhiladiPro, he’s pioneering AI solutions that make professional-grade sports assessment accessible to anyone with a smartphone.
In this exclusive conversation, Shah reveals how computer vision is transforming talent identification, why some aspects of coaching should always remain human, and how he is bridging technical innovation with grassroots sports development, offering insights into AI’s role in creating more equitable opportunities in athletics.
What inspired you to create this platform, and how do you envision it shaping the future of youth sports and fitness?
KhiladiPro was created to address a major gap in India’s youth sports ecosystem. India, home to over 500 million children, faces the lack of a scalable, standardized way to assess athletic talent or fitness at the grassroots. We believe that the Right to Play and the Joy of Play should be universal, and AI can make that possible. By using mobile-based Visual AI, we assess motor skills and sport-specific ability with just a smartphone, eliminating the need for expensive equipment.
Our goal is to democratize access to structured sports assessments, especially in underserved areas by providing a Virtual AI Coach capable of guiding and supporting every child’s fitness & sporting journey. In the long run, we want to create a national athletic rating system that can identify talent early, support development through data, and guide children toward meaningful sports opportunities.
Your team brings together experts from sports, technology, and business. How do you foster collaboration and innovation to ensure KhiladiPro stays ahead in the evolving sports tech landscape?
We operate on an agile, innovation-first approach. Our in-house team has built over 55 visual AI models from the ground-up, adding 3 new ones every month. To keep ideas fresh and relevant, we continuously test with real users like PE teachers, students, and coaches, so that our tech solves real problems. This feedback helps us to keep improving. As a team, we take an ‘AI First’ approach to all aspects of the business to ensure we are up to date with the latest in the AI space and are building for the future.
Our tech experts work closely with sports professionals to align AI assessments with athlete development models like LTAD (Long-Term Athlete Development) and FMS (Fundamental Motor Skills). We follow a best-in-class approach to curriculum and assessment design, drawing on the expertise of renowned professionals such as Vijay Lancy (Team India badminton coach), Asif Zafar (former cricketer), and other high-profile leaders from the world of sports and fitness.
By enabling cross-disciplinary collaboration and staying rooted in field realities we are able to stay ahead while remaining focused on our core mission: making sports accessible, fun, and data-driven for every child.
Building a sports tech startup focused on athlete development comes with its own set of challenges. What have been the biggest hurdles you’ve encountered so far, and which strategies have helped you scale and attract young athletes/students?
Our company is not only focused on athlete development, but also on promoting sports and fitness for all children. Scaling in diverse, resource-constrained environments has been our biggest challenge. Many academies lack infrastructure, and affordability remains a barrier. We tackled this by building AI models that work directly on phones, with no internet or additional devices required. Our AI team has also developed tools to process a number of our visual models using just the mobile phone’s processing power, saving further costs. We have introduced subsidized and free assessments for government schools along with bulk B2B pricing for larger academies. Mass participation initiatives like the KPro Olympiad helped us attract attention while collecting data to improve.
Also, we have localized our outreach through a 6 Pincode Model, targeting small towns like Mahoba (U.P), Dibrugarh (Assam), and Dhule (Maharashtra). By staying inclusive and lean, we have turned challenges into growth strategies that bring meaningful value to students, academies, and coaches.
KhiladiPro combines technology with community engagement to motivate youth fitness. How do you balance providing effective training tools with fostering a supportive community to keep users motivated for the long term?
We blend high-quality tech with real human support. Through our Olympiad, children of all skill levels and ages are encouraged to engage in some form of movement using a gamified approach within our app, beyond their assessments. Each child receives rewards for movement in the form of ‘Sweat Points’ which can be used to receive sports equipment, or even to support other promising athletes as a community. From our assessments, children receive video-based performance reports and progress benchmarks, which are easy to understand and motivating. These tools give immediate feedback while helping parents and coaches tailor training. Our Khiladi Klub nurtures top performers through scholarships and mentorship, building aspiration and community. Assessments are personalized and repeatable, allowing kids to track improvement over time.
We also ensure safety and inclusion, especially for girls, by conducting assessments in comfortable settings. This mix of data, recognition, and community support keeps young users engaged, motivated, and eager to improve over the long term.
What’s next for KhiladiPro? Are there new features, partnerships, or regional and international expansions that you’re particularly excited about?
Over the next year, we are scaling the KPro Olympiad across 4 cities and expanding to a 300+ day event calendar. All of this will go a long way in helping us achieve the ultimate goal of creating a Virtual AI Coach completely tailored to each user (like a visual ChatGPT for sport and physical movement).
We are developing ‘Smart Court’ tech for real-time performance tracking and expanding our Visual AI capabilities to cover more sports. Pilot programs in Australia and the UAE are planned. We’re also rolling out gamified dashboards for coaches and parents and enhancing athlete support systems through the Khiladi Klub.
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