Meet the speakers of the TEDxEcublens 2022 Conference

The TEDxEcublens team is happy to introduce to you the team of speakers that will participate in our next conference Expansion and Evolution, taking place this 19th October in the Swisstech Convention Center, close to the EPFL campus. Get to know the speakers, as well as getting a sneak peak at their amazing trajectories and speeches. Each and every of them, as well as the team is so excited to meet you this October at our 2022 conference.

Alexandre Alahi

“Socially aware AI”

Alexandre Alahi is currently an Assistant Professor at EPFL. After obtaining his Ph.D from EPFL. His research uses Computer Vision and Machine Learning applied to transportation problems and Smart Environments. In his lab, he works on socially-aware Artificial Intelligence (AI), a type of AI, augmented with social intelligence. This means that the machines can identify different social situations, moods or predict trajectories from video images, thus anticipating social etiquettes & free will. In 2022, Alahi was recognized by AMiner as one of the top 100 Most Influential Scholars in Computer Vision over the past 10 years. His work has been licensed to several companies and covered internationally by BBC, abc, PBS, Euronews, Wall street journal, and other national news outlets around the world. Alexandre has also co-founded multiple startups such as Visiosafe, and won several startup competitions and was elected as one of the Top 20 Swiss Venture leaders in 2010.

Eline van der Beek

“Nutritional Programming during the first 1000 days: a window for adult disease prevention”

Eline van der Beek is the Head of Nestlé Institute of Health Sciences (EPFL) since April 2021. She worked as the research director for Early Life Development at Danone Nutricia Research in Singapore, the first center in Asia to focus on maternal and child health. She has been appointed as Special Professor of Nutritional Programming at the University Medical Centre Groningen, University of Groningen. Her work surrounds mainly the study of the effects of nutrition on health and nutrient quality and specific needs during different stages of development. Eline is a (co)inventor of more than 25 patent applications and has published over 80 articles in peer reviewed journals.

SAYPE

“Art to serve Humanity?”

Guillaume Legros is a self-taught artist and a nurse by training. He began painting graffities in the streets of France at the age of 14. He is famous for painting large frescos on grass, using a style that mixes graffiti and land art (a contemporary art movement that uses the framework and materials coming from nature). His pseudonym Saype is formed from the contraction of "Say" and "Peace", which are both words he used in his graffities from an early age. Through his work he shares his vision of the world, inviting us to question our deep nature and spirit, as well as our place on earth and society. In 2019, Forbes ranked him among the 30 most influential people in the world under 30 in the field of art and culture.

Chan Cao

“Storing data like nature”

Dr. Chan Cao is head of the Laboratory for Bio and Bio-Inspired Nanosystems at EPFL. Following her award of the prestigious PRIMA grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation in 2020 she founded her own research group at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences. Her work covers different aspects of molecular nanotechnology with a high focus in biological nanopore sensing, and also addressing major questions in life science and also in diagnosis. Moreover, Dr. Cao is heavily investigating how DNA Nanostructures could be used as a completely new way of storing digital data. This new biological data storage system could have the potential to replace conventional storage systems such as servers and hard disks, thereby mitigating some of the issues that these storage systems are causing to our planet, such as the increasing amount of energy they consume each year.

Muriel Richard Noca

“Heavy traffic jam in space”

Muriel Richard Noca studied in the prestigious California Institute of Technology and was part of the NASA Mars Program. She is also the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ClearSpace, a ground-breaking initiative based in Switzerland to clear up Space debris. ClearSpace provides in-orbit services to support institutions and commercial operators in accomplishing their space missions safely and sustainably. The company was founded in 2018 with the vision of creating a new space business model by shaping space sustainability. ClearSpace is partly funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and it’s first mission should take place in the year 2025.

Hai Nhu Pham

“Third Culture Kids, the model citizen of the world”

A 23-year-old Master’s student who has spent half of her life in Switzerland, Hai Nhu Pham has also spent many years trying to reconciliate the two different parts of her own identity: “I was constantly living in a cultural opposition. Between the Swiss part of my identity which I acquired at school, and the Vietnamese part of me which remained from my upbringing, I no longer knew in which world I belonged: they were parallel universes – polar but complementary at the same time.” Now, she is ready to share her experience with other people fighting the same battles as her: finding their global identity.

Matteo Pariset

“News in 4k: the true face of ineffective news”

Matteo studies Computer Science Theory at EPFL and devotes most of his days to signal processing, algorithms, data structures and sunbathing. Despite not knowing much about biology, he got fascinated by the beauty of proteins. As a result, he is now using artificial intelligence to help a biotech startup teach the charm of these molecules to computers. Besides trying to understand (and to debug) machine learning models, Matteo is also deeply interested in the societal impact of this technology: he has officially selected online misinformation as his favorite topic of discussion, replacing the much beloved endless debates about politics and food. Meanwhile, to move from words to deeds, he is developing nugget.news — a decentralized news distribution platform designed to promote a fair and open access to information.

Lucie Chollet & Romane Picheral

Cello and clarinet

Chollet is a passionate cello instructor as well as a classical cellist, passionate about orchestra, period playing, and contemporary music. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Haute Ecole de Musique of Lausanne and is extra player in the Zürcher Symphoniker since 2019. Lucie Chollet is passionate about teaching teach and currently studies music pedagogy at the Bern Academy of the Arts.

Romane Picheral is a part of the Bloom trio since 2017 (guitar, cello and clarinet), where she plays chamber music. She’s also part of the concerts of the orchestra of the Haute Ecole de Musique of Lausanne.