Many people, regardless of their backgrounds or interests, love music and consume it daily. These days, this consumption will mostly be focused on digital music, which users discover and access through online services.
As such, many people in the world implicitly engage with Music Information Retrieval technology. As such, our research field has considerable potential for public outreach. As already mentioned by the ISMIR 2019 general chair during ISMIR 2018, this could be an opportunity to try engaging a more diverse young audience for STE(A)M topics.
After investigating several national and international possibilities, we ultimately have chosen to focus on the immediate locality of ISMIR 2019, and are happy to partner with ROEM - Campagnebureau voor de goede zaak in running the first Youth Music Challenge. Over the coming months, we will run workshops in multiple Dutch secondary schools, challenging youngsters aged 12-18 to propose, prototype and present ideas for 'the music service of the future'.
While the initial workshops will be conducted in Dutch, several outcomes will be selected for a short English-language pitch presentation on the night of November 5, 2019, at OPEN, the public library and music school of Delft. These outcomes will subsequently become part of a temporary public exhibit at OPEN, showcasing our youth's ideas to both the ISMIR community and the general public.
While we already are building up a local network, any Dutch schools that are not on our radar, but are interested in participating in the Youth Music Challenge can reach out to us at ismir2019-outreach@ismir.net.