Conferences
The conference programme evolves each year. Topics and speakers may vary.
Organised notably by École Polytechnique, this conference was led by Nesma Houmani, lecturer in neuro-engineering, Guy Gozlan, psychiatrist, Thomas Lindemann, professor of political science, and Nabila Sasdli, PhD and digital health project manager.
AI revives, in a very concrete way, age-old questions. Drawing on the metaphor of the Tower of Babel, the speaker examines the promise of a single language, efficiency, prediction, optimisation, mathematisation, grounded in information: does it serve to produce more order, or to seek truth? He then situates this technology within liberal civilisation, built upon free will, autonomy and responsibility (a destiny shaped by free and informed consent). With AI, judgement and decision-making are externalised: a new vision of the human being emerges, in which the exercise of our responsibility slips away at the risk of erasing the very pillars of our civilisation.
An overview of e-health (teleconsultation, remote monitoring, tele-expertise, tele-care, robotics): a tool to complement rather than replace care, to address medical deserts and reduce hospitals' carbon footprint. Yet it relies on a fragile relationship of trust, sensitive and scattered data (SNDS, unified patient record), a demanding regulatory framework (GDPR, HDS, CNIL), and persistent obstacles: interoperability, AI bias, the digital divide and the slow pace of integration in the sector.
Understanding biological problems and developing tools to handle data from living systems. An overview of the main fields of application, bioinformatics of sequences (DNA, RNA, proteins), structural (macromolecules), networks (modelling of biological systems), populations (ecology, epidemiology) and images (satellite, microscopy) with pattern recognition on noisy data.
Three talks at the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology: medical imaging and instrumentation techniques (scanners, implants), artificial organs and microfluidics applied to blood analysis, and finally the engineering challenges of pacemakers (battery life, energy management, cardiac integration).
Inclusive economics as a response to social fragmentation, a major risk alongside climate and geopolitics. From the social business inspired by Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank, Danone) to 'base of the pyramid' strategies (Essilor, Schneider, Dacia), companies can solve social problems rather than fuel them, through frugal innovation, reverse innovation, social impact contracts and solidarity finance. Applied to healthcare access with the example of IPSO Santé tackling medical deserts.
Presentation of research on racism: the difficulty of defining it, its pervasiveness and its rise in contemporary societies, and the factors that explain it. Methodology for designing surveys and techniques for analysing data (factor analyses, attitude scales).
Presentation of the French Longitudinal Study from Childhood: how the survey unfolds, how participants are followed over more than ten years, methodological challenges, and the principles guiding the analysis of these complex data.
Introduction to the company and to the role of data in medicine: challenges around data collection, methodologies and regulation, then how the data are exploited using advanced techniques (clustering, unsupervised models).
A historical perspective on data and artificial intelligence: from symbolic AI to neural networks, the specialisation of models, the deep societal transformations brought by these technologies, and questions of power around the control of AI.
Presentation of Inria's work on processing public data in the service of journalism and freedom of expression. The diversity of formats (CSV, JSON, graphs), the difficulty of collecting and combining them, the construction of unified models, the contribution of AI to information extraction, and issues of conflicts of interest in journalism.
The study of bacteria, their types and their reactions, and an illustration of the collaboration between biologists and computer scientists: how a mathematician can find their place in problems applied to living systems. A more biological section on DNA sequencing and replication.
An analysis of the crisis of liberal-representative democracies through the lens of populism. The symptoms are multiple: rising abstention, the erosion of governing parties, declining unionisation. The satisfaction curve flattens among younger generations. Populism, hard to define, refers in its pejorative sense to a corrupt elite facing a pure people. Resentment is framed as 'the poison of democracy'.
Presentation of StatCheck, an automated fact-checking tool: a warehouse of statistical data coupled with a search engine and textual analysis to detect persuasive techniques in the media (binary classification or multi-class across 13 techniques). Broader view on a system for integrating heterogeneous data with unified access through a mediator, a warehouse or a data lake (graph representation, compact summaries, SQL queries). Data journalism is defined as the intersection of facts, raw data and computing skills.
Epidemiological monitoring of China's Zero Covid policy, based on the expatriate community and multiple cross-referenced sources, with incremental death rates as a central indicator. The conference also introduces the concept of inclusive economics carried by Bénédicte Faivre-Tavignot, articulated around three dimensions: access to goods and services, access to credit and loans, and duty of vigilance.
A structured debate around the legitimacy of non-physician entrepreneurs in healthcare. Supporters of NO highlight a fresh perspective, freedom and the absence of bias from a medical calling. Supporters of YES emphasise legitimacy, responsibility and the prevention of impostures. Rémy Slama also speaks about biology becoming highly quantitative and the application of data to public health.
Can healthcare be treated as an ordinary business? The supportive side highlights real demand, international competition and the creation of applications. The opposing side recalls the patient-caregiver relationship, vital stakes, ethics and the social security framework. In Europe, CE marking and clinical studies remain unavoidable prerequisites for reimbursement.
Abbott presents itself as a global leader in diagnostics, nutrition and medical devices, with 800 employees and 300 million euros in revenue in France. Personal data are described as the most valuable resource of the 21st century, ahead of natural resources. The SNDS is portrayed as a unique system in the world, centralising all national Vitale data and accessible for research and health policy steering.
The hospital sector accounts for 11.5% of GDP, including 5% for public hospitals, but suffers from a structural shortage of staff. The conference posits ontological trust as the sine qua non of any digital transformation: without it, action becomes violent or anarchic. Illustrated by hospitals' refusal to use GDP as a steering indicator, and by the inability to treat 40% of patients due to a lack of doctors.
Meetings at Station F with entrepreneurs from the Parisian startup ecosystem. Presentation of AYOLAB, a startup specialised in tracking products on marketplaces (Amazon-type), illustrating a concrete application of data science outside the strictly health-related field.