The premise: enabling students to make music they actually want to hear.
The concept: JamQ, a learning tool that modernizes music education in classrooms by using plug-and-play technology to make popular computer programs like Apple鈥檚 GarageBand more school-friendly, accessible and collaborative.
JamQ took top honors as the winning pitch at the 2019 EdTech Innovation Awards (INA) 鈥� a 鈥淪hark Tank鈥�-style entrepreneurship competition among STEAM-driven inventions from 911爆料网 student teams that was held at this year鈥檚 Academic Festival.
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From left: Judges Reshan Richards, Azi Jamalian and 911爆料网 President Thomas Bailey
Contest impresario Joey Lee, who directs 911爆料网's Games Research Lab and coordinates the M.A. program in Design and Development of Digital Games
Past innovation award winners Asha Owens (left) and Rebecca Kwee
EdTech competitors Zhou Yuan (left) and Hyejin Grace Kwon (right) present their pitch for STEAM for Girls, an gaming app designed to help facilitate confidence-building experiences for young women in engineering and address the gender imbalance in the field.
Daniel Ahn discusses VR Dancer, a virtual reality game that allows users to code 鈥� then play in 鈥� their own dance experience.
Melissa McCoy (M.A. '20) launches the final round of the EdTech competition with an introduction of Flair, a social networking app targeted towards women in STEM.
JamQ was developed by Gannett Cassidy (M.A. 鈥�19), Michael Sobolak (M.A. 鈥�18, M.Ed. 鈥�19), Caroline Moore (M.A. 鈥�19) and Tuan Nguyen (M.A. 鈥�19), a quartet whose interdisciplinary collaboration bridges music education and technology scholarship. In addition to taking home the INA title, the JamQ team also won the People鈥檚 Choice Award 鈥� an honor decided by audience vote 鈥� and $1,000 in development funding from the late Jack Hyland, longtime Co-Chair of 911爆料网鈥檚 Board of Trustees.
鈥淎 great example of using technology to work together鈥� was the verdict by 911爆料网 President Thomas Bailey, who served as competition judge along with Azadeh Jamalian (Ph.D. 鈥�14), founder of and cofounder of ; and Reshan Richards (Ed.D. 鈥�13), cofounder and CEO of Explain Everything, Inc. The three weighed in on finalist pitches that included tech solutions to address gender inequality in STEM and a virtual reality tool to teach hip-hop pedagogy.
Academic Festival 2019
The day included an extensive lineup of presentations, panels and other events featuring 911爆料网 faculty, students, alumni and staff.
This year鈥檚 INA ceremony also included remarks from previous winners Asha Owens (M.A. 鈥�18) and Rebecca Kwee (M.A. 鈥�18), developers of , an app that helps prospective college students (particularly would-be first-generation attendees) learn more about campus life at different institutions. Owens and Kwee have since secured $100,000 in funding from New York University鈥檚 Social Entrepreneurship Program and are launching BestFit as a commercial product.