30 November 2016

The first in Belarus Minsk Music Tech hackathon was held in the HTP business incubator from November 25-27 as a part of Minsk Music Week. During 48 hours of team work, software developers, engineers and musicians created 14 projects related to different aspects of the music business and information technology.

Minsk Music Tech started on Friday with a conference featuring mentors and judges Andrew Gevak (Head of Yandex.Music at Yandex), Andrey Savitsky (Sound and UI/UX Designer at GISMART), Denis Trusila (Art Director of Freaky Summer Party), Alexander Bogdanov (Owner of BoPromo concert agency), and Andrey Zhukov (one of the best sound producers in Belarus). They shared their ideas on how technologies could influence music in the future and what IT solutions can help the music business today.

After the conference, everyone could sound their ideas and find like-minded people to create joint projects during the next two days. On November 27, the projects were presented to the judges, colleagues, and audience.

Blue Vinyl was named the winner of the hackathon. The team presented a prototype of a modern retro-style record player. The player imitates the warm sound of a vinyl record with typical nostalgic crackling and frequency distortion. The winners received an opportunity to demonstrate their project at Midem, the international B2B music event held in Cannes, France.

The largest and most musical team – Hack a Tone received the second prize and the competitors' choice award. The team prepared a concept of a hackathon for musicians. The idea is to attract musicians and let them build up new teams to create unique music tracks. The team proposes to hold the final in the form of a concert. To prove the concept, Hack a Tone created a website of the project, recorded and uploaded 3 tracks and a music video. They also entertained everyone with musical improvisations during the three days of the hackathon. The team was awarded a Raspberry Pi computer and an opportunity to present their project at Colisium International Music Convention to be held in Saint Petersburg in April, 2017.

The third prize was awarded to the youngest team – Master Your Dance. The team developed a system turning a human body into a musical instrument. The program allows to link samples to certain movements so that music could be danced, literally. Master Your Dance also received a Raspberry Pi computer and an invitation to Colisium in Saint Petersburg.

Guests and participants of the hackathon believe that the event was fruitful and became a good foundation for the future development of the music-tech movement in Belarus.

The hackathon was organized by the HTP business incubator and its resident-company TouringApp (Ontourcloud).

Yandex.Music, Gismart and Dev.by were partners of the event.