Decentralised media sharing platform

Final Year Project, Department of Computer Science

Project supervisor: Dr. J.T.H. Yuen (Department of Computer Science)

Project information

Project descriptions

The application makes use of blockchain’s immutability and traceability to create a platform that can better protect copyright and fair use of media by providing secure storage and usage tracking. It aims to preserve the originality of the artwork by validating the proof of work during uploading.

Team information

Project leader: Lau Siu Ming, BEng(CompSc)

Team member(s): Yam Mei Ki, BEng(CompSc)

Project arrangements

Dr. J.T.H. Yuen (Department of Computer Science)​

The title of the project is “Decentralised media sharing platform” – a creative content sharing platform with the use of blockchain technology.

The students understand the blockchain and smart contract technology first. Then they decided to use blockchain as a creative content sharing platform. They developed a complete system for it, including the front end (webpage) and the back end (cloud storage and blockchain system).

Firstly, they have to understand what a suitable application of blockchain and smart contract is. After they come up with the idea of “content sharing platform”, they have to compare it with existing solutions and other potential competitors. Finally, they have to develop the whole system, from front end to back end. In short, they are going through a complete blockchain application development process. 

This project can help students to understand what have to be done for (the technical part of) a blockchain startup project. 

In the design phase, it starts from looking for ideas and identifying real-world problem. Then the students have to differentiate their project with competitors’ projects. During the implementation phase, the students have to design the high level architecture first, followed by choosing a suitable platform for deployment. Finally, the students have to collaborate and link the front end to the back end part. If the students want to build his own startup (whether in blockchain or not) in the future, it is a very good practice.

There are challenges in both the design phase and the implementation phase. 

For design phase, it is difficult to find a suitable application in which no one else has already developed a similar application for it. It requires the student to have some creativity. For the implementation phase, the difficulty is the storage of artwork (jpg files). It is because blockchain is not intended to use as an online data storage platform. Therefore, the students have to use a cloud storage for jpg data and interact with the blockchain system. Together with the front end web server, they have to design how data is transferred and updated between these three systems.

The project is interesting to student since it is quite similar to build their own start-up company in blockchain. This project involves some business design (find out what application is realistic in blockchain), technical design (system architecture between three smaller systems) as well as concrete implementation (web server, database and smart contract). Different areas of knowledge are needed for the success of this project.

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Project website
Awards

Winner of the Dean’s Fund Award @ The 1st Engineering InnoShow

This project team was selected for the Dean’s fund award at the 1st Engineering InnoShow. 

This team has received HK$10,000 sponsorship to participate in external competitions or incubation/ entrepreneurship/ startup programmes.