The idea of building the Idometrics platform started in 2021 when Joseph Okeme, a professor in the science faculty at McMaster University heard the heartbreaking news about the Renegade dance. Jalaiah Harmon, a then 14-year- black girl, created the renegade dance as a school project but Charlie Angelo and other more famous tik tokers got the credit and recognition. Jaliah’s story is the exploitation story of most creators from minoritized groups for centuries.

Okeme began thinking about ways of using AI to detect dance plagiarism and storytelling to further gauge authentication since, often, only the creator knows the true story behind their dance. Okeme then invited Juwairiah Zia, an AI researcher, Selina Mudavanhu, a professor in communication and media with research interests in digital storytelling, and Peter Okeme, a blockchain programmer. Jamal Deen and Shahram Shirani, professors in engineering at McMaster provided invaluable advice at the beginning of the project and continue to provide encouragement and support.

As a contribution to addressing the exploitation problem, the Idometrics platform is now where everyone’s dance moves are celebrated, and every dancer feels valued. Ido means dance in Igala, a Nigerian language, and metrics means analysis or measurement. We are grateful to the Arts Research Board for the seed funding that has contributed to building the platform.