photographist

"Photon echoes led me on to spin echoes, which are the basis of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which enables us to see the human body in a completely transparent way. For me, this meant a change of discipline from physics to information technology. I did a thesis in IT on image analysis, and gradually came to search engines – with one particularity: searching for information through visual content. How to search for an image, a face or visual content without having any keywords? Today, searches involve to a large extent the analysis of multimedia content, and that is what I have been involved in over the past few years at INRIA, where I have led a research team. INRIA is the National Institute for Research in Information Technology and Automation. It was set up in 1967 under the plan Calcul, a French government programme to promote French autonomy in computing and information technology.

Ikona-Maestro is a computing platform developed by our team, which enabled us to develop applications for the recognition of plant species, including a mobile app for identifying photographed species. It is useful both for the general public and for professionals in the conservation of protected species. Another application of our visual searches was designed in partnership with the interior ministry to combat child pornography. One of my current goals at the Digital Society Institute (ISN) is to bring together experts from a range of disciplines – lawyers, sociologists and economists, as well as digital experts – to encourage confidence and uptake of digital technologies by the general public. The main aim is to attune the views of scientists with those of political and industrial decision-makers."

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