IRT SAINT EXUPÉRY (TOULOUSE), CRIAQ AND THE INSTITUTE FOR DATA VALORISATION (MONTRÉAL) SIGN A COLLABORATION AGREEMENT
March 6, Toulouse – On the occasion of the official visit of Philippe Couillard, Premier of Quebec, the IRT Saint Exupéry, CRIAQ and the Institut de valorisation des données are entering into a 5-year strategic partnership in the fields of aeronautics, aerospace and embedded systems.
THREE KEY PLAYERS IN ACADEMIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH SIGN A PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT
The purpose of the formal partnership agreement between the three entities is to set up and develop annual or multiannual work programmes and exchange activities in the aeronautics and aerospace sector. Artificial intelligence will be at the heart of the first collaborative programs.
In particular, it is a question of favouring the setting up of collaborative projects between industry and the French and Canadian academic communities; of encouraging exchanges of research personnel, whether they are academic or industrial, young or experienced.
This agreement will also make it possible to develop cooperative links through strategic studies, courses, seminars or joint conferences.
CROSSED VIEWS
Gilbert Casamatta, President of the IRT Saint Exupéry:
“Aeronautics and space industries, like the automotive industry, manufacture critical systems whose failures can cost lives. For them, artificial intelligence methods must prove their robustness and stability, which is in itself a nascent research project on an international scale. Grégory Flandin, head of the Intelligent Systems & Data division at IRT Saint Exupéry, responds to this need by setting up a team
of “dependable & explainable AI” research, bringing together the best of the three worlds of academia, industry and start-ups. The collaboration with IVADO and CRIAQ announced today immediately positions this project internationally, in terms of ambition and visibility.
The IRT Saint Exupéry thus confirms its mission to bring academics and industrialists closer together on artificial intelligence. Gregory Flandin and his teams have been doing this for more than three years now. Their first successes were based on the use of “big data” technologies and “deep learning” methods for massive satellite image processing, for applications such as change detection, mission planning, or automatic image processing. Exceeding the performance of the human operator, these results have already been transferred to partner manufacturers and have been the subject of international publications, which have earned us numerous letters of support from these manufacturers. They have fully benefited from the expertise of the best research laboratories in our eco-system.”
Gilles Savard, Director of the Data Valuation Institute:
“This strategic partnership is fully in line with the mission of the Data Valuation Institute, IVADO, which aims to be the bridge between the various university expertise and the needs of companies in the field of massive data and artificial intelligence. The multidisciplinary nature of the actors involved as well as their expertise provide fertile ground for the co-construction of innovative solutions to current and future technological challenges. »
In addition, as Gilles Savard, Executive Director of IVADO, points out, “Our academic and industrial members are already working together to solve problems in the transport and logistics, energy, health and trade and finance sectors. This synergistic collaboration with the IRT Saint Exupéry and CRIAQ will allow us to improve our expertise in order to ensure the robustness and transparency of the algorithms developed within IVADO, with a view to their certification. »
Denis Faubert, President and CEO of CRIAQ:
“With a world-class aerospace ecosystem and a world-class artificial intelligence hub, both of which already work closely together, Québec is a partner of choice in these areas.
CRIAQ is particularly pleased with this agreement, which strengthens existing relationships between our organization, whose mission is to increase the competitiveness of the aerospace industry and improve the collective knowledge base, IVADO and the IRT St Exupéry. We see cross-fertilization and mutual stimulation of innovation in these two industrial sectors, providing significant economic benefits for both our nations.
IRT St Exupéry and IVADO are high quality partners. Our joint projects will certainly make it possible to make technical progress.
