185

Artificial Intelligence Made in UMONS

Does artificial intelligence still need any introduction? The buzzword has invaded our media and everyone seems to agree that the economic world urgently needs to come to grips with AI, otherwise it will inevitably lose its competitive edge. In practice, however, things are slightly more complicated. How can we access the right technologies? How can we analyse the real opportunities AI opens up for your business? How can we develop tools adapted to your needs? Although some are more advanced than others in thinking, the path towards AI remains strewn with obstacles.

© UMONS

One of the university’s missions is precisely to investigate the right solutions and develop techniques specifically geared to the industry’s needs. This transfer of cuttingedge research to the industrial community in order to contribute to the socio-economic development of the territory is one of the roles UMONS takes most seriously. On top of the foundation that is training and research, the mission of the university is therefore to place the knowledge it develops to serve society. From understanding the industry’s needs to facilitating the transfer of innovative solutions to the business world: UMONS is committed to developing the whole chain. This is especially true for artificial intelligence, a field that is developing very rapidly, for which it is crucial that research and the economic fabric engage in a close dialogue.

Today, UMONS has more than 9,000 students in over 150 programmes from Bachelor to PhD level, in Mons and Charleroi. It also has 900 researchers, almost one third of whom are confronted in their research with questions relating to artificial intelligence. But UMONS was interested in AI long before the term became a buzzword. The university has even been repeatedly and directly contributing to the current AI boom, at the highest international level, since the end of the 1980s.

AI research at UMONS

Today, artificial intelligence touches upon many fields of research within UMONS. Nearly fifteen research departments within the Polytechnic Faculty, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences use and develop AI techniques as part of their research. The projects are varied and allow for the application of AI in numerous fields such as energy, logistics, multimedia, smart cities, health and smart farming. Today, UMONS has over forty ongoing research projects on AI with numerous active private partners and over one hundred researchers, post-docs and professors whose research focuses on artificial intelligence.

A few illustrative examples of these projects are presented below.

H2020 Interactive Grounded Language Understanding (IGLU): natural language is one of the singular talents of our learning environment. Research on grounded language understanding is a real challenge in the area of artificial intelligence. The project brings together scientists from 8 partner institutions (including UMONS and the MILA laboratory in Montreal), experts in speech and language technologies, deep learning, neuro-morphic information, affective information and developmental robotics.

AI for detection and aid in breast cancer diagnosis: currently UMONS has two ongoing doctoral theses that seek to improve breast cancer diagnosis and optimise treatment by predicting the tumour’s response to chemotherapeutic treatments. These projects are undertaken by a larger research group that develops AI algorithms specific to medical imaging issues (osteoporosis, cancer, scoliosis etc.).

Win²Wal MobFaceNet(in partnership with MoodMe): this project aims to develop artificial intelligence modules based on neural networks for face analysis by providing a variety of data such as age, gender and emotion of the person. The modules must also be capable of working without an Internet connection on smartphones with limited storage and processing capacities. The results must be provided in real time while at the same time preserving the security of the data processed on the smartphones which will not be sent to any remote server.

TEDDI (FNRS): by capitalising on the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning in particular, this research project focuses on the development of tools to assist clinicians with the diagnosis of mental disorders in children, based on brain data. This project falls into the general context of explainable artificial intelligence. The objective is therefore to develop interpretable algorithms to be used as an aid in the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders.

© UMONS

techniques. In addition to compression, dimension reduction allows the automatic extraction of relevant information. The development of these new techniques finds application in various areas (analysis of social networks, recommendation systems, automatic video background separation, automatic sound source separation etc.).

E-CLOUD: development of an artificial intelligence tool for the prediction of renewable energy (wind or photovoltaic) production within a community by providing the customer with a representative consumption profile of his behaviour for each period under consideration, so as to give him the necessary information to adjust his consumption to local production.

DGO3 ROAD STEP: a network of Decision-Support Tools for the Monitoring of Grazing Herds. The objective of RoadStep is to provide regular, occasional and remote monitoring of animal welfare. The Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are used to study animal behaviour, growth and health. Decision-support tools based on artificial intelligence methods allow the prediction of diseases within a herd. © UMONS

In recent years, UMONS has further stepped up its AI activities, resulting in the creation of three new spin-offs in the field of sound, gesture and image analysis: Hovertone, Ittention and Depthen. These spin-offs thus join the ACAPELA spin-off, which for over 20 years now has been active in speech technologies and more specifically in the creation of personalised voices.

Our latest AI spin-offs from the Information, Signal and Artificial Intelligence Service (ISIA) at UMONS are briefly presented below.

Established in 2016, Hovertone specialises in the creation of interactive technology installations. In May 2019, Hovertone inaugurated the AURA project at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Paris. AURA is a hybrid interactive experience on the theme of sustainable development. This installation materialises the discussion of a visitor with artificial intelligence into a physical, visual and connected experience, raising the visitor’s awareness of the SDO of the United Nations. ITTENTION, also founded in 2016, focuses on the prediction of visual impact. Ittention has developed artificial intelligence that enables the automatic prediction of locations that will draw human attention, even unconsciously, on all types of communication media: websites, advertising, brochures, packaging, planograms, magazines and videos. Using innovative and objective metrics, the tool makes it possible, without human investment, to quickly optimise the visual effectiveness of communications to enhance their impact on the target audience. Ittention thus assists its clients in adapting their communications before they hit the market so as to avoid visual impact errors and ensure that the key elements are rapidly made visible to the target audience.

Founded in 2019, the Depthen spin-off provides tools for the understanding of image and video for indexing and media production. Depthen thus provides transparent access to the most advanced artificial intelligence and deep learning technologies, used to enhance visual content and video streams with highly detailed descriptive metadata (objects, environments, persons, emotions etc.). This makes it possible to enhance the value of multimedia resources, discover hidden treasures, considerably reduce the production costs of new content and create new formats.

AI training at UMONS

In addition to research, UMONS has also adapted its educational programme to meet the new challenges offered by AI. UMONS has thus decided to open, from the 2019-2020 academic year, 3 new study paths dedicated to artificial intelligence in the Master in computer science and Master in engineering science programmes. The university thus hopes to contribute to the massive arrival of young qualified graduates on tomorrow’s labour market.

UMONS has also been able to respond to the demand from industry for an advanced AI training programme for its teams through the introduction in 2018 of a university certificate in artificial intelligence, enabling companies to train their personnel thanks to an adapted programme with staggered hours. This training has been well received from the outset by the participating companies. UMONS’s Artificial Intelligence Certificate “Hands on AI” consists of an evening teaching module worth 5 credits and a weekend “workshop” module worth 5 credits. The teaching modules are provided by professors at UMONS who are AI experts, and focus on concrete projects and practical technical challenges integrating various AI methods, including Deep Learning.