Paweł Dzikiewicz, Izabela Paniczek and Dominika Serafin – students from our Strategic Neuroinformatics ‘Neuron’ Research Club won third place in the international hackathon „Music and AI", organised in Nara, Japan. Congratulations! Over 100 people from around the world competed in the contest.

The hackathon took place at the Gyokuzoin Temple in Nara, and it was open to software developers, graphic designers, user interface specialists, as well as experts and professionals from the process industry. Their task was to identify problems and create programming solutions within 24 hours.

The participants included students from our Faculty: Paweł Dzikiewicz, Izabela Paniczek, and Dominika Serafin. Their team developed a real-time therapeutic application that analyses the user's brain activity (using EEG equipment), recognises their emotional state with the help of an artificial intelligence model, and generates music (using a large language model) and visualisation tailored to the recipient's current mood.

– For a long time, we have been interested in combining new technologies with the area of psychological and emotional support. In previous projects, we explored the connections between artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and psychology – says Izabela Paniczek. – Art, including music, plays a significant role in many forms of therapy, which is why we decided to explore the subject. We wanted to take it a step further and use generative models to create music as a supporting element in the therapeutic process – she adds.

In December, our students received a grant as part of the project „Support for students in enhancing their competencies and skills" funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education from the European Fund Programme. During the 24-hour hackathon in June, they decided to develop an application which supports the therapy process.

In Japan, the team was evaluated on technical aspects, which included a conversation with the jury and the presentation of their code and a final presentation, during which the participants had to briefly present their solution.

– Due to limited internet access, we encountered difficulties related to downloading the libraries and tools necessary for creating the application. Our project required, among other things, libraries for processing music in MIDI format and technologies such as FastAPI, React, and Three.js. We had to quickly reorganise the team's work, dividing responsibilities in such a way as to accomplish as much as possible without the need for external resources – explains Izabela.

For securing third place, our team received a prize of 1,000 euros and material rewards. Importantly, the students intend to continue developing their project.

– We are focusing on further refining the music-generating modules, enhancing the application's visual effects, and integrating it with the emotion journal. Such a journal will allow the user, as well as the therapist, to track and analyse changes in emotional state over time. Additionally, we plan to write a scientific paper describing the solutions we have applied in the context of combining AI, music, and neuroscience – declares the student. – Note that this is a therapy-supporting application and does not completely replace it. In the future, it may serve as a tool used by therapists – she emphasises.

The team of the Neuron club operating at our Faculty consists of programmers and other specialists interested in neuroinformatics. Students work with brain-computer interfaces, through which they gather information about brain activity for further processing. They later use the information to prepare artificial intelligence models and use them in various types of applications.