THE FLATS – Three Georgia Tech swimmers, Cale Russell, Kyle Barone and Nicole Williams, took home first place at CREATE-X’s fall 2021 Idea to Prototype (I2P) Showcase, held Dec. 6 in the Marcus Nanotechnology Building atrium.
“What an amazing accomplishment for our team. It was awesome to see these Student-Athletes thrive in a real-world experience,” Toni M. and Richard L. Bergmark Swimming and Diving Head Coach Courtney Shealy Hart said. “When a swimmer or diver chooses Georgia Tech, they are not just choosing a team, but they are availing themselves of a myriad of opportunities that our Institute provides. We are very proud of Nicole, Kyle and Cale for this accomplishment.”
The showcase is the culmination of a semester’s work where student inventors can turn their idea into a working product. The product the trio came up with is Radiochain.
Radiochain is a blockchain-based music application that turns the world’s music library into a stock market exchange. “Users can invest in their favorite songs and artists instead of investing in companies as stocks. We plan to do this through an innovative token model that will benefit artists and fans alike,” Williams said.
The start of their journey to CREATE-X success started their freshman year on campus. When the group arrived on campus, Rahul Saxena, CREATE-X’s interim director, shared the program with the swimming and diving team. From there, the trio got to work, ultimately winning the top prize.
“It has been so rewarding to build something from the ground up together, and we would highly recommend other students take advantage of doing the same,” Williams said.
The computer science majors provided their own strengths to help them overcome the challenges associated with working on a decentralized product. While their course work includes traditional stacks on a Web2 platform, the decentralized product required them to learn completely new languages and frameworks for the Web3 stack necessary to code a decentralized product.
“A lot of how our website looks is done through traditional JavaScript and React but at the core of Radiochain is the use of blockchain technology,” Barone explains. “The smart contracts, which govern the rules of interaction with the blockchain, is written in a specific coding language called solidity. It differs from traditional languages in that it has a specific use case for implementing smart contracts and handles crypto functionality.”
Radiochain will continue to be developed as the group will enroll in I2P for the spring semester. They will get mentorship from Doug Allvine, Tech’s Assistant Athletics Director for Innovation. These will be the foundational building blocks for Radiochain’s introduction to applying to CREATE-X Startup Launch and competing in Georgia Tech InVenture Prize.
“We’re very grateful to Georgia Tech for providing us with the space to work on something we’re passionate about and are excited to continue,” Russell said.
The talented inventors are just as equally talented swimmers. Barone owns the second fastest 100 back time, second fastest 100 fly time, fifth fastest 200 back time, sixth fastest 200 fly time, sixth fastest 100 IM time and eighth fastest 50 free time in program history. He has also swam with seven top relay teams in program history including the best 200 free relay, 400 free relay, 200 medley relay and 400 medley relay teams in program history.
Williams owns the fourth fastest 100 breast time and the fifth fastest 200 breast time. She has swam with two top relay teams, swimming the fly leg of the fifth best 200 medley relay and eighth best 400 medley relay teams in program history. Russell owns the fifth fastest 1000 free time and fifth fastest 1650 free time in program history.
Alexander-Tharpe Fund
The Alexander-Tharpe Fund is the fundraising arm of Georgia Tech athletics, providing scholarship, operations and facilities support for Georgia Tech’s 400-plus student-athletes. Be a part of developing Georgia Tech’s Everyday Champions and helping the Yellow Jackets compete for championships at the highest levels of college athletics by supporting the Annual Athletic Scholarship Fund, which directly provides scholarships for Georgia Tech student-athletes. To learn more about supporting the Yellow Jackets, visit atfund.org.
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