On Tuesday, we went along to the The Alan Turing Institute for the first Franco-British conference on AI, bringing together French and UK leading incubators, investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers. The event was organised by the London French Tech Hub and the opening talk was given by the renowned French mathematician and politician, Cédric Villani.
Villani is a remarkable character; a genius mathematician (he won the Fields Medal in 2010 – the ‘Nobel prize of mathematics’) yet quite unlike the stereotypical reserved recluse. He’s charismatic, extrovert with an eccentric dress sense, and actively involved in French politics. He’s been tasked by the French President, Emmanuel Macron, with examining France’s strategy on artificial intelligence (AI) within Europe.
A second talk was given by Jérôme Pesenti (CEO, Benevolent Tech) and there were then two panel talks. Kwiziq investor and board adviser, Wendy Tan White MBE, was one of the panelists.
It was a fascinating and stimulating day full of wonderfully refreshing conversations about how Britain and France can work together, going forward, to ensure the future of AI in our countries is a bright one.
Huge thanks to French Tech London and the Institute for organising the event. They’ve posted a great selection of photos here.
Author info
[Follow on Twitter: @gruffdavies] Despite the very Welsh name, Gruff is actually half French. Nowadays, he's a tech entrepreneur (and some-time novelist) but he used to be a physicist at Imperial College before getting hooked on inventing things. He has a special interest in language learning, speaks five languages to varying degrees of fluency and he often blogs about language learning, science, and technology. As well as co-founding Kwiziq, he is the author the Amazon best-selling SF thriller, The Looking Glass Club and the inventor of the Exertris gaming exercise-bike and Pidgin, a free online tool that makes drawing flow charts and relationship diagrams as quick and easy as describing them in pidgin English.
You must be logged in to post a comment.