Chemistry professor on a mission to help dancers protect their art in the TikTok era

Joseph Okeme expects puzzled looks when he talks about his start-up company.

Idometrics – which just landed in the App Store – uses AI and blockchain to prevent dance plagiarism in the Age of TikTok.

Yet Okeme isn’t a dancer and doesn’t have a technical background. He’s an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology with a PhD in Physical and Environmental Sciences. He leads a research group at McMaster that’s developing novel methods for studying how environmental chemical exposures influence human and ecosystem health.

So why has he spent the past four years building Idometrics? And why has he made it his mission to help dancers own their choreography, protect their art, tell their stories and build their legacies?

Okeme would watch dance videos in his social media feeds and think of home. He was born and raised in Nigeria – it’s why he named his company Idometrics (ido means dance in the Nigerian language Igala).

His mother led a social group that brought family, friends and strangers together for meals, music, singing and dancing. Okeme would tag alone and take it all in.

He could connect the dances he saw growing up to the dances he was now watching on his smartphone. He realized those connections could be easily and forever lost because dance didn’t have a family tree or genealogy. There was no way to preserve and track the origins of a dance.

Okeme also inherited a strong sense of social justice so he was troubled by what happened to Jalaiah Harmon in 2019. The 14-year-old choreographed the Renegade dance and posted her performance online – it got around 13,000 views. Other dancers – who weren’t Black – copied Harmon’s choreography and their videos went viral. None of those dancers credited Harmon and then the National Basketball Association invited two white social media influencers to perform the Renegade dance during the all-star game. She’d eventually get an invitation and the credit she deserved thanks to a story in the New York Times and an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Harmon’s story, plus the realization that most amateur dancers and choreographers aren’t going to get write-ups in the New York Times or guest spots on talk shows, motivated Okeme to create his company.

And this is where his background as a scientist came into play. Ideas are the currency of academia. Scientists like Okeme use citations in their research to credit the ideas and the life’s work of fellow scientists.

“Dancers are no different from scientists or anyone else – we all want credit for our original ideas.”

Like his mother leading her social group, Okeme brought together family, friends and friends of friends to build Idometrics. What he lacks in technical skills Okeme makes up for in assembling a global dream team. He recruited Juwairiah Zia for computer vision and product development, Selina Mudavanhu – an associate professor in McMaster’s Communications and Media Arts – for digital storytelling, his brother Peter Okeme for full stack development, Chigozie Muonagolu and Ibrahim Shittu for the development team, Mojola Nwaka for branding and art direction, Aishu Bhavan for digital marketing and Sabina Jeikhunzade for UI/UX design.

They’d meet online every Saturday at 1 p.m. to keep updated and motivated.  Entire years went by when Okeme didn’t have a single free weekend and he’s eternally grateful for everyone who sacrificed their Saturdays to join the calls.

The team set out to build a company that uses AI and blockchain to analyze, authenticate and timestamp choreography. The concept proved easier said then done. “I quickly realized why no one had come up with this solution before. There have been obstacles every single step of the way,” says Okeme. “But scientists are trained to persevere and constantly think of solutions. So that’s what we did.”

It’s no coincidence that Okeme’s work on Idometrics accelerated after joining McMaster as a faculty member in 2022. He could now easily find the expert help and advice he needed down the hall or across campus. It’s how he connected with engineering professors Jamal Deen and Shahram Shirani and Mudavanhu. Along with her expertise in digital storytelling, Mudavanhu secured a pair of Arts Research Board SSHRC seed grants. McMaster also helped Okeme work through the process of getting a patent on his start-up’s proprietary technology.

Dancers can now use Idometrics to compete in challenges, receive fan donations, track their dance impact metrics and connect with other dancers, choreographers, influencers and cultural dance institutions. Okeme has started exploring how to use the platform to connect not only dancers and choreographers but also musicians who can then work together to create original performances and be credited for their work.

Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. Okeme is already working on his next big idea – an app that will connect research groups with graduate students. The talent pool is international and most scientists aren’t trained to be recruiters and HR managers. When faculty launch research groups, hiring the best possible student is critically important. Staying true to his social justice roots, Okeme wants to level the playing field and make opportunities accessible to all grad students regardless of where they live. The grad student who takes a research group to a whole new level just might be at a social group in Nigeria enjoying great food and even better company.

And when Okeme talks about his next big idea, he doesn’t get puzzled looks. Faculty colleagues and grad students only ask how soon the app will be up and running.