Dr Jason Harding is a lecturer, academic, and a program director within Griffith University’s Business School (Department of Tourism, Hotel, and Sport Management). Jason obtained his PhD from Griffith University in 2010 whilst affiliated with Griffith’s Centre for Wireless Monitoring and Applications and working as a Research Scholar at the Australian Institute of Sport and the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. During his PhD candidature Jason was principal sports-scientist for the Australian Snowboard and Mogul Skiing Teams preparing for the Winter Olympics Games – working with coaches and athletes on performance projects and travelling with teams as they attempted to qualify. Jason was involved in athlete preparations through two Winter Olympic Games (Turin Italy, 2006 and Vancouver Canada, 2010).
Jason’s research focus is on the management of performance technology in elite sport; his teaching focus is sports management and also technology with respect to its impact on humanity and business. His Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (SoLT) focus is effectively balancing the use of emerging instructional technologies with inspirational face to face teaching approaches. A surfer, skateboarder, snowboarder, artist, and photographer, Jason is also the founder and chief administrator of Anarchist Athlete (www.anarchistathlete.com), Hype Media Lab (www.hypemedialab.com), and The Undergrad Project (www.undergradproject.com) – online communities focused on generating positive impact in sport, business, and higher education.
Anarchist Athlete is focused on sports-science, sports management, and managing emerging technology in elite-level surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding, Hype Media Lab is focused on providing small businesses access to an innovative online marketing community allowing proprietors the capacity to maintain control over their own online marketing channels, and The Undergrad Project is focused on inspiring university students to dream big, back themselves, and realise their potential. Jason has published in numerous internationally peer-reviewed journals, has recently been awarded a Griffith University Award for Teaching Excellence (2013), and regularly presents at conferences and corporate functions on sports-science, sports management, online marketing, and enhancing teaching effectiveness in higher education.
Dedicated to the investigation and application of technological innovations in elite sport and higher education settings, Jason is currently writing up two projects – one funded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) focused on successfully managing the integration of emerging performance assessment technology in elite half-pipe snowboard competitions and in doing so, developing an evaluative framework for the management of technological innovations in all sports – and one focussed on the contradiction inherent in The Undergrad Project – the initiative endeavours to generate a community of inquiry focussed on activating worthwhile knowledge acquisition and social interaction, however, its sole use of an online medium to do this may simply demean and dilute the human interaction it seeks and as such, create yet another dehumanized zone in a virtual world.