The Sónar+D Innovation Challenge (SIC), co-organized by the Music Technology Group de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra is the platform for rethinking the future of creative technology, based on the open collaboration between companies and talented creators from different fields. Companies propose challenges to creators and collaborate to produce disruptive prototypes to present them at Sónar+D. This years’ challenge, with a ‘datathon’ format, has been posed by the music analytics platform FuturePulse, an EU-funded project that draws on data from the most popular social media services, streaming services, music monitoring services, and, combined with machine learning and advanced analytics, predicts trends in the growth of artists, genres, playlists and more.


Over the past two weeks, two teams of successful applicants have been creating models and solutions for identifying early popularity trends in music (artist, songs and genres ), and for predicting how trends will develop or evolve, in specific demographics or influence groups. 

The proposals were: 

Team A 
Forbidden Territories. Using music analytics to explore censorship in music on a global level.
Alberto González Pulido 
Andres Ferraro  
Gema FB Martin 
Rita Geleta 
Sylvain Le Groux 


Team B 
See you on the Dancefloor. A tool for music venues to scout and book online events.
Ananda Mele 
Cristian Prigoana 
Daniel Rosero 
Livia Fioretti 
Lorenzo Porcaro 

The teams presented their findings in a live online event which you can re-watch now.

Following the presentation and deliberation by the judges, we’re pleased to announce that the team with the most innovative solution and that will recive the cash prize is Team B for ‘See you on the Dancefloor’. 

Congratulations to both teams for their outstanding work and thanks to Music Technology Group of the Universitat de Pompeu Fabra for their support.

For more information on FuturePulse visit www.futurepulse.eu