Mentoring session

5:30 PM - 6:30 PM - 24th of October

Meet inspiring researchers and start-ups and ask them questions! What were their main difficulties? What are their motivation? How to create its start-up? Feel free!

How: Choose 2 mentors from the following list and have ~20 minutes to chat with them in small groups. Form to make your choice: https://forms.office.com/e/5zvCm5z0bW

Mentors’ rooms:

• Giuseppe D203
• Pierre-Henri B107
• Tristan B108
• Mathieu C105
• Catherine E105
• Eric C207
• Anthony Amphi
• Massinissa E107

Description

• From Software Engineering to AI Researcher and Startup Innovator - Anthony Coutant, HephIA
  Anthony Coutant is the Co-founder, Co-CEO, and CTO of HephIA, a startup developing innovative Generative AI solutions for the legal sector. With a diverse background that spans software engineering, AI research, and business management, Anthony’s career reflects a unique combination of technical expertise and entrepreneurial insight.
  Anthony began his journey with a master’s degree in MIAGE (Méthodes Informatiques Appliquées à la Gestion des Entreprises), which provided a strong foundation in software engineering and business management. His apprenticeship during this period equipped him with the practical skills needed to navigate the intersection of technology and business.
  Afterward, he pursued a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, specializing in unsupervised learning and graphical models applied to social networks. His academic career continued with a postdoctoral project on autonomous robotics in biology, where he developed AI for a robot capable of conducting real-world biological experiments. This work resulted in his being the first author of a publication in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), one of the most prestigious scientific journals.
  In parallel, Anthony collaborated with industry leaders like Renault, Safran, and Thalès, applying exploratory AI to solve complex industrial challenges. These experiences demonstrated the potential for AI to scale beyond research applications.
  In 2017, Anthony co-founded HephIA, with the support of the SATT and the X-Up incubator at École Polytechnique. Initially focused on AI for industrial applications, the company pivoted toward Generative AI for the legal sector. Although HephIA is still in the process of reaching full commercial viability, Anthony and his team are refining their product in collaboration with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) in the legal industry to ensure a successful market launch.
  Anthony’s trajectory illustrates the challenges and opportunities of transforming cutting-edge AI research into a scalable business. His blend of software development, AI expertise, and business acumen positions him to lead HephIA in tackling real-world challenges, from the lab to the legal sector.
  Personnal page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycoutant/

• International health through food company: the Emergence of AI, Eric Dugré, Danone Global Research & Innovation Center
  Eric Dugré is a seasoned R&D Director with extensive experience in process and product innovation within the food industry, particularly dairy and baked goods. Since 2023, he has focused on leading global projects, enhancing efficiency through industrial reformulation, and mentoring talent. Previously, he directed the Danone Global R&I Center from 2018 to 2023, where he oversaw a transformative initiative to develop a new research facility and led various innovation programs that resulted in significant revenue growth and numerous patents.
  From 2010 to 2018, he held various roles at Danone Dairy, including Product Design Director and Dairy Technology Director, where he managed teams of technologists, spearheaded product launches, and implemented technology solutions that improved profitability. His earlier career includes leadership positions at Danone’s pilot plants and involvement in industrial support for biscuits, where he contributed to productivity improvements across multiple factories.
  Dugré holds degrees in Food Engineering and Food Processing and has cultivated a reputation for building effective R&D organizations and fostering team growth
  Personnal page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-dugre-b26b8442

• Founding an AI Startup Right Out of School, Tristan François, Veeton
  Tristan François is the co-founder of Veeton, a startup specializing in generative AI for virtual try-on technology. A graduate of École Polytechnique and Télécom Paris, Tristan began working on virtual try-on during his final year at Télécom Paris as part of a research project.
  During a research internship in Montreal, Tristan worked on reinforcement learning applied to constraint programming. It was during this time that he discovered the field of virtual try-on. The following year, he tailored his academic curriculum to develop skills in generative AI, laying the groundwork for his future entrepreneurial venture.
  In 2023, shortly after completing his studies, Tristan co-founded Veeton. The startup faced the typical challenges of a new venture in a highly technical field. Since its inception, Veeton has focused on building a team, developing their initial product, and securing funding to support their growth and innovation in the AI-driven virtual try-on space.

• MCF: a traditionnal academic journey in France, Massinissa Hamidi, IBISC, Université d’Evry, Université Paris-Saclay
  Massinissa HAMIDI est maître de conférences à l’université d’Évry Paris-Saclay. Il a effectué un master en informatique à l’université Paris Diderot (actuelle Université Paris Cité) autour des logiciels sûrs avec un focus sur le design de compilateurs et l’étude de la sémantique des langages de programmation. Il a mené ses travaux de thèse en intelligence artificielle à l’université Sorbonne Paris Nord autour du méta-apprentissage. ATER à l’université de Picardie Jules Verne pendant un an, il rejoint par la suite le laboratoire LISSI à l’université Paris Est en tant que postdoctorant pour travailler sur des projets européens en collaboration avec le groupe ADP (Aéroports de Paris).  Les recherches de Massinissa HAMIDI portent sur le méta‐apprentissage, ou comment développer des agents qui apprennent à apprendre par eux-mêmes, avec des applications à l’internet des objets, la médecine personnalisée et aux données omiques. Personnal page: https://hamidimassinissa.github.io/

• Becoming a ‘maître de conference’ (Assistant professor) in France, Vicky Kalogeiton - LIX, IPP
  Vicky Kalogeiton is an Assistant Professor at École Polytechnique since 2020. She received her M.Sc degree in Computer Science from the DUTh, Greece, 2013, where her master’s thesis won the best thesis award. In 2017, she obtained her PhD from the University of Edinburgh and Inria, Grenoble, advised by V.Ferrari and C.Schmid, where part of her thesis won the best poster award from the Grenoble Alpes University in 2016. From 2018 to 2021, she was a research fellow at Oxford University working with A.Zisserman. Some of the projects she supervised were a highlight (CVPR 2024), won the student honorable mention award (ACCV 2022), and the best paper award (ICCV-W 2021). She was Associate Editor for CMBBE from 2017 to 2024 and has been Associate Editor for CVIU since 2024. Since 2021, she has been serving regularly as Area Chair at major vision conferences (outstanding Area Chair in 2022) and before she used to serve as a reviewer, having been awarded six times as an outstanding reviewer. Vicky Kalogeiton is the recipient of several grants, including two MS Azure Academic gifts, and an ANR JCJC award for junior researchers in France. She has co-organized workshops at CVPR, and ICCV, has given more than 30 invited talks, has been a mentor for women, students, and underrepresented groups in vision, and high-school students. Her research interests focus on multimodal learning (visual data, text, audio) split into three axes: generative AI, video understanding, and multimodal medical applications

• How to position your research and contribute in a field transformed by LLMs?, Matthieu Labeau, Télécom Paris, Institut Polytechnique de Paris
  Matthieu Labeau joined Télécom Paris as a Senior Lecturer in 2019. He completed his doctorate at the University of Paris-Saclay, where he worked on the problems posed by large vocabularies in language modeling. He then became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Edinburgh. His research areas, within automatic language processing, mainly concern representation learning and language modeling.
  Personnal page: https://www.telecom-paris.fr/matthieu-labeau?l=en

• From Software Engineer to Knowledge Graph Researcher: A Journey Through Industry and Academia - Pierre-Henri Paris, LISN, Université Paris-Saclay
  I am an associate professor at Paris-Saclay University, with a PhD from Sorbonne University and postdoctoral experience at Telecom Paris. Before starting my academic career, I spent 10 years as a software engineer, which gave me a unique perspective on research challenges and industry needs. My research focuses on knowledge graphs, knowledge representation, and natural language processing (NLP).
  I began my PhD later in life, balancing academic demands with family, having my first child during my PhD and my second during my postdoc. I emphasize the importance of networking – not only for finding a job but also for support throughout the journey. I would love to share insights on how to successfully navigate career transitions, balance personal life with research, and leverage your network to thrive in both academia and industry.
  Personnal page: https://phparis.net/

• How to respond to the questions raised by AI in (a priori) not AI-friendly professions? Catherine Pouget, SPINOVA
  Catherine Pouget-Cauchy is the founder of Spinova. Spinova supports managers and organizations in their AI and technological projects changing minds and practices. She has supported change in companies like Bnpparibas, the Linde Group, the FEEF, Alpinia Finance, Lang Expertise …
  Including IA technology in organizations requires a multi-disciplinary approach (HR, Organization, mathematics, IT, etc.), a suitable methodology (PMI 2022) and especially in the expertise business - higher cognitive activities.
  She is a Management & Cognition Sciences Doctor from Paris-Dauphine University in partnership with Collège de France.
  Dr Catherine Pouget-Cauchy is also the author of the Spinova methodology presented with the infinite loop graphic facilitation.
  She has catalysed change in project management training with already the track record of a thousand innovative project managers trained to her methodology.
  She has been teaching in schools and universities and especially in cognitive control and is conducting applied research into the digitalisation of software specifications.
  She regularly speaks at conferences related to innovation, management and cognition (Centrale, Essec, Fnege, B612, Iena, IFIA, Paris Cité des Sciences, UPPF, …) and published articles (R&D 360, Veille Magazine…).
  She has been proposed in 2019 for the Joliot-Curie Prize in the category Women-Research-Company. Personnal page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinepouget/

• How AI has transformed multimedia research: opportunities and challenges?, Giuseppe Valenzise, L2S, CNRS - CentraleSupelec - Université Paris-Saclay
  Giuseppe Valenzise is a CNRS researcher at Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, CentraleSupélec, Laboratoire des Signaux et Systèmes. He is currently the head of the Multimedia and Networking team. Giuseppe obtained his Ph.D. degree from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, 2011. In 2012, he joined the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) as a permanent researcher, first at the Laboratoire Traitement et Communication de l’Information (LTCI) in Telecom Paristech, and from 2016 at L2S. He received the French « Habilitation à diriger des recherches » (HDR) from Université Paris-Sud in 2019.
  Giuseppe’s research interests span different fields of image and video processing, including traditional and learning-based image and video compression, light fields and point cloud coding, image/video quality assessment, high dynamic range imaging and applications of machine learning to image and video analysis. He has co-authored one book and over 120 research publications, including several award-winning papers. He received the EURASIP Early Career Award in 2018 for « significant contributions to video coding and analysis ».
  Giuseppe Valenzise is the Editor in Chief of the EURASIP Journal on Image and Video Processing. He also serves/has served as Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing (outstanding editorial board member award in 2022 and 2023), Elsevier Signal Processing: Image communication. He is the Chair of the Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP) technical committee of the IEEE Signal Processing Society. He is/was also an elected member of the Multimedia Systems and Applications (MSA) technical committee of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, of the MMSP and IVMSP technical committees of the IEEE Signal Processing Society, and of the Technical Area Committee on Visual Information Processing of EURASIP.
  Giuseppe is one of the general co-chairs of the IEEE Int. Conference on Multimedia&Expo (ICME) 2025, held in Nantes, France.
  Personnal page: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/u/valenzise-giuseppe/