ADAPT PhD Candidate Presents as Part of the Sonar Innovation Challenge

20 January 2021
ADAPT PhD Candidate Presents as Part of the Sonar Innovation Challenge

Posted: 23/08/16

ADAPT PhD candidate, Kieran Fraser, participated in the Sonar Innovation Challenge that brought together innovative tech companies and creators who were tasked to collaborate to solve challenges, leading to disruptive prototypes showcased at Sónar+D in Barcelona.

The six-week long project saw Kieran work as part of an international team to create an innovative product for Deezer, the digital music streaming service. Deezer challenged creators to build a system that monitored crowd behaviour in order to generate and control a live music flow.

The Sónar Innovation Challenge, co-organized by the MTG, is an online and onsite platform for creative minds that want to be one step ahead and experiment with the future of technology. SIC tries to boost the impact of cutting edge technologies by challenging creators with a wide range of backgrounds to solve industry related issues motivated by market needs.

The final product that the team built was a web application through which users would log in using their Deezer account. Once logged in, a user would pick from one of two teams to “fight” for. The winning team determines the next song to be played in the live playlist. The team song is chosen based on various characteristics of the participants of the team. A user will help their team win (and hence have their team song played next) by dancing to the beat of the current song being played. The more in time with the song the user is the higher their team score is. The accelerometer of the player’s phone is used in combination with a beat detection algorithm to determine how well the user is dancing in time with the music.

The application captured the attention of Deezer and the company has requested that work continues on a beta version of the product over the coming months. Well done to Kieran and those involved.

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