Zacharias Vamvakousis (GR)
Zacharias Vamvakousis is a researcher in the field of digital musical instruments for people with disabilities.
In 2008 he graduated from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He continued his studies with the postgraduate study program of Informatics music at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. At the same university he completed his doctoral dissertation entitled “Digital musical instruments for people with mobility disabilities”. He is also a graduate of classical accordion and harmony.
For the last 3 years he has been delivering music lessons to people with disabilities using the EyeHarp music interface. EyeHarp is the main result of his research activity and is the first musical instrument to be played with the eyes. Thanks to the EyeHarp about 50 million people with motor disabilities worldwide have access to playing a music instrument for the first time.